SHELTER DELIVERY: HOUSING STATE EMPLOYEES, EFFECTING RECOVERABILITY

Erle Frayne  Argonza

We surely have housing backlogs on a perennial basis in the country. The backlog had never been sufficiently filled up amid the media hypes of stakeholders regarding this developmental problem. Even when civil society joined the housing arena together with the state and market, huge backlogs by the millions of houses remain.   

I had the opportunity of working for the Ministry of Human Settlements in the early 1980s as a young junior executive. The posts I occupied (deputy provincial manager, acting provincial manager, …) allowed me to oversee state programs in development, notably community development, enterprise development and housing.

The institution of a line ministry as a strategy to meet the housing backlog, fast-track the construction and delivery of livable houses did work to achieve desired ends up to a certain extent. As far as my office was concerned then, our mandate was to plan and execute new projects under the shelter program (I directed the start-up planning for the house-on-stilts for new Cagayan subdivisions then, and had them approved for implementation), and monitor the ‘rural BLISS’ sites (BLISS = Bagong Lipunan Improvement of Sites and Services).

The rural BLISS sites were largely located in small towns and catered mainly to government employees. They were already constructed and occupied when I arrived as a community development assistant in 1981. A team in our regional liaison office monitored the sites by interfacing with the homeowners’ associations called the BLCA (BLISS Community Associations).

When our ministry was re-organized and expanded in mid-1981, management of the sites went to the Estates Management Office of the Regional Office (called Area Coordinating Center or ACC). My office (called Provincial Action Center or PAC) interfaced with the Estates Management group, got reports from them, and thanks heavens this relieved me of some heavy tasks regarding the matter.

Effecting recoverability was quite a tough one then, to recall. All of the sites’ homeowners somehow paid their mortgages on time, though some got delayed in remitting theirs’, save for one: the Tuao site. Tuao was headed by a warlord Mayor (Leonard Mamba), but who, being a fellow alumnus at the University of the Philippines, was very cooperative and cordial with me.  

Having no problem in relating to the local exec, I can now deal directly with the Tuao BLISS homeowners. They simply refused to pay their bills (mortgage)! What terrible homeowners these ones were, one may rightly surmise. Because, as one can see, they were the only ones who refused to pay mortgage. Terrible! How should you deal with the matter, if you were tasked to do oversight job on it?

It wasn’t my office’s job to instill collection rules, but the matter was brought to my attention by the shelter staff of the regional office. They begged me to put my feet forward a bit, dip my hands in the fiasco, and negotiate with the homeowners. The residents could have gone to the mayor to stake out their stubborn attitude, but they realized I was ‘chika-chika’ (cordially related) to the mayor there (who was a brilliant lawyer in Manila before becoming the warlord mayor).

I immediately drew the tactics in my mind. It was still best to talk to them, this was Plan A. But if talks would fail, if carrots won’t work, then I will have to use sticks on the stubborn residents. The stick was to request the provincial commander of the Philippine Constabulary (who was my ‘chika-chika’ and distant cousin), and use the troops to drive out the residents. I was tough about doing Plan B.

But I was resolved in exhausting Plan A. For two (2) days I visualized myself like some Napoleon Bonaparte talking to his men and inspiring them with words. Inspire the homeowners with words, this was the tactic. Move them to tears, remind them that it would be better to have a home and pay for them, rather than live in the streets homeless. Move them with words, simple!

My own exposure to the theatre as a college student did pay off in this task. I had to role play for many hours, said my lines to my agency team, and then delivered my lines before the residents. It worked! There was standing ovation and loud applause after the talk. I can never ever forget the engagement, I myself was nearly brought to tears. The following week they began to settle their arrears and began to pay their dues.

Well, the occasion proved that good communications should be exhausted, and eloquence pays off much. Practice eloquence, maximize personal touch on clientele, and you can move mountains. That will brighten your day, as development is all about moving mountains anyway. It can be done.

[Writ 29 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

BRIGHT MANILA A JEWEL OF PLANET EARTH

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza

[Writ 04 April 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Good day, Fellows!

This primate city, my beloved Manila, was dubbed as the Pearl of the Orient before the 2^nd World War. Reading through accounts of the city during the late President Quezon’s time, and viewing pictures of it during those halcyon days, one’s jaw would surely drop at this jewel of the orient.

I was never that lucky to have witnessed that great past. But I’m lucky enough to bear witness to Manila’s unfolding into a gigantic over-developed metropolis that it is today, which had since expanded into a ‘greater Manila area’ comprising of 17 cities and towns. And it is still growing into a megapolis.

It was simply too tragic a thing that the Philippines, like its sibling nations in Asia, got entangled in a war that was not its own. That catastrophic event fated Manila to be flattened back to the Stone Age by ceaseless carpet bombings, rendering the once jewel city into an apocalyptic wasteland that was 2^nd in devastation only to Warsaw.

The city had grown after the war, with the execution of a master plan for a greater Manila that defined development expansions on through the outlying lands. It became the hub of the industrialization efforts started by the Roxas regime, gave birth to a new city called Quezon City (as envisioned by the late president Manuel Quezon) that was to be the administrative and educational center, housed the financial center that was to be Makati, and out came forth every commercial activity without let up across the decades.

True, just like the rest of the primate cities of Asia, Manila attracted vast hordes of migrants from the rural areas. Squatting, pollution, traffic jams, flooding during rainy days, and population congestion calcified as its chief problems. By the 1990s Manila was all but a picture of apocalyptic urban decay, no different from what it was in 1945 after the end of World War II.

That situation had since changed. Manila had surely jettisoned off to the ‘overdeveloped’ or 1^st world status. New arterial boulevards have arisen, 17 key mix land-use commercial hubs grew as its model areas, floods have been put under control, light rail systems are rising rapidly around it, and many former polluting industries were disseminated to other regions.

Today Manila is a gigantic metropolis and is fast moving to become a megalopolitan hub or ‘megapolis’. It produces 1/3 of the gross domestic product or GDP and has sufficient resources to build its own ambitious infrastructure projects including international airports. Being so awash with funds, it had been compassionately donating aid to calamity-devastated cities and towns that are less fortunate (i.e. 3^rd world communities).

It had also arisen as the fashion and shopping capital of Asia, an esteem that used to be bestowed only on Hong Kong and Tokyo. It boasts of huge shopping malls, most of which are of wonderful architectural designs. Underlying this cultural landscape is the multi-cultural template of a postmodern city, which makes it a natural attractor of culture producers and cosmopolitan bohemians from many parts of the globe.

Now that it had risen to its present state, Manila, this time grown to a megapolis in size and influence, is fast regaining its ‘pearl of the orient’ image of a foregone era. And most likely this image can be surpassed in the coming years and decades ahead.