Making Urban Squatting A History

So it seems the issue of urban squatting would be solved by government by giving amiable and accessible housing units to urban Filipino poor. And when this problem is solved, you watched on television and read on newspapers, there is triumph, a battle won to eradicate poverty. But how far have we really get passed this national concern which continue to axe its way to a President's State of the Nation Address yearly?

The Estrada Administration promised to build up to 350,000 housing units annually or 1.4 million houses until the year 2004. The Arroyo Administration, however, proclaimed it will increase the numbers of housing units to be established to solve the prevailing 9.75 million urban poor's housing concern to finaly leave shanty houses or squatters' areas. But according to the Presidential Commission on Urban Poor (PCUP), the housing crisis will continue to rise. There is little hope that poverty eradication that hinges on erasing the marks of slum dwellers in urban areas will be solved overnight.

The escalating poverty condition, aggravated by different factors such as overpopulation, unemployment and many others, will continue to assume its role in dragging the nation further down. As efforts are geared to patch the different holes caused by poverty in the nation's face, the determination sems weightless because it is not the root of the problem that the government set its lens upon. Urban squatting is a result of the mounting problem of poverty. Nonetheless, relocation efforts appear to be very superficial, only a way to clean the face to look good but not perpetual. Soon the cosmetics would fade, would vanish at the height of economic turmoil.

Making sure that something is being done to solve housing crisis is a good start. Having the proper perspective, however, would guide the concerned people to put a good intention work such as solving the issue at hand. Poverty eradication and making poverty history is one good step, the first broadstroke that should be done with care, discipline and good conscience. Rebuilding the Filipino's confidence to its nation that it can do good for the citizen should not be forsaken. Handling the Filipino psyche, culture of hopelessness and what National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin called heritage of smallness, should also have our government tackling and addressing to get the support and cooperation it envisioned to have.