Hontiveros: Open Idle Housing Units to Families Displaced by Flooding

Senator Risa Hontiveros urged the government to immediately utilize idle and unoccupied housing units in resettlement sites to serve families displaced by disasters and calamities.

"There are at least 13,000 housing units in government's resettlement sites na nakatengga lang. We can use these units to help the residents in vulnerable and hazard-prone areas to start anew" she said on Wednesday during the Senate joint committee hearing on flood control, in which one of the agenda was her filed Senate Resolution No. 571 seeking to look into the human-made causes of the severe flooding in the aftermath of the recent typhoons, Rolly and Ulysses.

Hontiveros also urged the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) to examine how the government's own facilities came to be located in danger zones. "Inilipat doon ang mga residente dahil nga delikado rin sa kanilang tinitirahan. Nakakapagtaka lang na ang mga pabahay ng gobyerno na dapat sana ay nasa ligtas na lugar ay inilagay sa may mas matindi pang disgrasya," she said.

She then asked for the decommissioning or shutting down of the recently-flooded public housing facilities, particularly Kasiglahan Village and Southville 8b in Rodriguez, Rizal, which were both located along 'red zones' according to the assessment of UP Resiliency Institute's Project NOAH.

"The residents of these National Housing Authority's (NHA) projects in Rodriguez Rizal have been previously displaced by government projects inside the National Capital Region. But, portions of these housing facilities have also been repeatedly inundated by two-meter deep floods in the past twenty years, and most recently by typhoon Ulysses." she said.

"Mula hazard ng pagtira sa Pasig River papunta sa hazard ng lagpas-taong baha sa Rizal, ang nangyari, unli hazard. Imbis na sa lugar na ligtas at may hanapbuhay sila nailipat, paulit-ulit pa silang napahamak. Laging back to zero — inuubos ng kalamidad ang naipupundar nila," she furthered.

In case these resettlement sites will not be decommissioned, Hontiveros said that the NDRRMC can offer financial help to NHA in order to build additional floors on top of the existing houses at no additional cost. "NHA may have to retrofit the structure of the housing units in Kasiglahan and Southville at tayuan ng second floor kung kinakailangan. Pwede pa nilang gamitin ang ikalawang palapag para iakyat ang mga gamit at may matuluyan sakaling tumaas ulit ang baha," she said.

She also emphasized the role of NDRRMC in ensuring the safety of the areas where government facilities, such as resettlement areas or schools used as temporary shelters and evacuation centers, are being built. At the end of the day, she said, the poor suffer twice as much from the devastating effects of natural disasters.

"Pagkatapos ng hagupit, ang mayaman, magpapababa lang ng baha, samantalang ang mahirap tinangay na ang bubong. Ang mayaman may flood insurance, ang mahirap assured na mapa-flood. Ang mayaman, namamatayan ng ilaw, ang mahirap namamatay. Typhoons may be caused by things beyond our control, but their effects and impacts are differentially experienced by the rich and poor," she said.

"Umaasa akong bibigyan ng pansin ng NDRRMC ang kaligtasan ng mga lugar kung saan nakatayo ang government facilities para sa mahihirap. Hindi pwedeng tayo lang ng tayo ng mga istruktura. Dapat ito ay disente at malayo sa panganib." she concluded.