It’s heart-warming to hear Vice President Noli de Castro, also chairman of the Housing Land-use Regulatory Board (HLURB), as he encouraged the public, especially government employees, to take advantage of the government’s offer for affordable amortization on new and foreclosed properties in the country.
Foremost in the government’s agenda is for the government employees without a house of their own to avail of these properties at very low interest rates. Perhaps, it is also another strategy of the government to generate huge revenues from the sale of these properties, most of the funds used to developed these houses were sourced out from the domestic financial system. But the real problem lies not on the employees’ interest to buy these housing units, some of which are already unfit for occupation, but on the government’s inability to soften the requiremnents that makes it unattractive to prospective buyers.
It seems there is lack of coordination between the HLURB and the housing agencies concerned. In practice, these housing agencies like the Home Mutual Development Fund, Home Mortgage Financing Corporation and others, would still require hefty down payment for every housing unit for the taking. In the first place, how can an ordinary employees afford a unit that requires him to shell out say, 100,000 pesos as down payment for the property he picked, when the lowly employee is only getting less than 10,000 pesos a month? In most instances, ordinary employess are already saddled in debts and loans, not to mention the monthly deductions that they have to suffer while in the government service. Another thing is that the unit available is unfit to accommodate a family of five because the housing units were designed and constructed like match boxes, squeezed from a 30 square meter lot.
What about the property’s proximity to the employees’ workplace? Transportation-wise, most of these foreclosed properties are located outside Metro Manila so that it would be an added misery on the pockets of an ordinary employee, who has to commute for hours between his place and the office where he works. Well, if you ask the government why is this so? The simple answer is that Metro Manila is already heavily congested so that expansion for housing development is encouraged in the outskirts of the metropolis. Fine. But again, the picture is tainted by what appears to be a myopic zoning plan of the government in so far as mass transportation system is concerned. Why not rehabilitate the existing Philippine National Railways? Or better still, introduce a new railway service so that those living in the suburbs can just go home after long hours of working, for as long as the train service is running on a 24-hour basis.
It was reported in the papers a few months back that China has signified its interest to revive the PNR’s operation by introducing new coaches that would service the southern corridor of Luzon up to the Bicol region. What happened to this plan? Was it shelved because big bus operators have blocked the impending implementation of the plan through huge lobby money to tame the decisions of the top brasses within the Department of Transportation and Communications? Of course, it’s simple arithmetic. If the plan pushes through, it is likely that revenues for these bus operators will surely be reduced because it will be more convenient to ride on a deluxe train coaches than to waste their time on buses that are oftentimes stalled on heavy traffic, especially during peak hours.
But the government seemed mixed up or disinterested at all in pursuing a more practical and convenient solution to the present problems affecting housing and mass transportation. Fix the railway system from north to south and the government’s PR blitz is expected to take off the ground. Until the government gains enough political will to do its share for public good, disposition of these housing units will remain unattractive to many people, particularly those who could barely make both ends meet.
If the real motive of the government is to give government employees the opportunity to own their houses, instead of renting, it would do away with the hefty down payments. Perhaps, the most practical thing to do is to find an acceptable solution to this dilemma. One of which is to lump in the down payment into the monthly amortization, if it is really sincere in its mission.