About Demolition Watch
Submitted by demwatch on Tue, 12/04/2007 - 16:53.
“Help defend the rights and assert the welfare of underprivileged urban settlers”
Demolition Watch Is an initiative and network of various community-based organizations, sectors including women, youth, professionals and the church, individuals and personalities deeply concerned on the massive dislocation of families in Metro Manila due to the on-going and impending implementation of the government’s privatization and infrastructure projects.
Rationale
The underprivileged urban settlers, the populace categorized by the government as residing in “danger zones” comprises 15% of the 12 million Metro Manila residents, or 1.8 million people. Vice President Noli de Castro in his speech at the World Urban Forum last June 22, 2006 unabashedly announced that 1.4 million of the Metro’s urban poor face eviction and their communities will be extricated to give way to privatization and construction of various infrastructure projects of the government. Such is the largest ever dislocation of families to happen in Philippine history.
And it is quite disconcerting. The sheer numbers of individuals to be dislocated are reasons enough for anyone to rethink about supporting the foreign-funded infrastructure projects and sneaky maneuvers to privatize government assests. But for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo: the welfare of the urban poor settlers is last in the list of priorities. In her 2007 State of the Nation address (SONA), the president happily enumerates her priority projects, all promising economic growth via privatization of government properties and construction of numerous infrastructures; and none saying what will happen to over a million people set to be dislocated in Metro Manila alone.
Equally disturbing is the recently released assessment of the Geneva-based Center on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), an international NGO working closely with the United Nations to uphold the housing rights of communities, on the record of the Philippine government as one of the world’s three worst housing rights violator in 2006, along with Nigeria and Greece. COHRE scored the country for what it called as its blatant disregard for the human right to adequate housing and continued failure to abide by its international legal obligations.
International law, particularly Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, provides those facing eviction with the right to consultation and adequate relocation. By adequate relocation, the covenant states that the site they are moved to must already have potable water, electricity, sewerage facilities, efficient solid waste disposal system, and access to transportation facilities. It is also preferred that the relocation sites are located in near-city and in-city areas that are close to the relocatees’ sources of livelihood.
The Philippine National Railways Modernization and Rehabilitation Program (PNR-MRP), one of the priority projects of the government, is one example of its patent disrespect of the rights and callousness on the welfare of the urban poor. Registered in NHA list are 104,000 families residing along the railways (north and south), automatically excluding the unregistered and bigger portion of the railways populace. The unregistered populace is conservatively estimated as twice the number of the registered.
Being unregistered, even though they also will be evicted, they are not included in the government’s show of effecting relocation for the displaced families. They are not even given due consideration. In Caloocan City, only those few families with own electricity and water connections are being included in the NHA list as it conducts surveys. There are also cases wherein those households without their own CR are being automatically excluded. An unreasonable and iniquitous regulations it is of the NHA, indeed. What has happened to the unregistered railways folks evicted in the north segment of PNR-MRP, no one knows, but surely their lives are worse today than ever before.
This is all but a show, the government relocation program, and an anomalously expensive one. The inhumane condition on the relocation sites, sold at high price to the displaced railway folks, is driving the relocatees to go back to where they came from. In a news report of Bulatlat.com, one relocatee described their condition in the relocation site in Southville, Cabuyao, Laguna as “we’re like animals dumped here”.
COHRE’s representatives who visited the same relocation site, the Southville, reported the following:
1. most of the relocatees have been moved to relocation sites where living conditions are appalling due to a lack of basic services such as potable water, electricity and sanitation facilities;
2. large numbers of houses at the Southville were with no roofs and only dirt floors;
3. six infants from Southville have died of pneumonia, sepsis and diarrhea;
4. extremely difficult situations for families to earn a livelihood after being relocated far from their places of work in Metro Manila;
5. inadequate school and health services, which in Southville meant that part of the school is housed in a tent, no water for two small toilets, children must pay for drinking water, and teachers have to work for three four-hour shifts to serve over 3,000 schoolchildren.
The situation dares and calls us to partake in the initiative to defend the rights and assert welfare of the urban poor. In lieu of the governments’ plan, which is to evict the 1.4 million people from different urban poor communities, a network of concerned groups and individuals must stand up. Thus the Demolition Watch has been conceptualized as an apt effort.
Objectives of Demolition Watch
1. Put up the Demolition Watch center, that will actively advocates for the defense of rights and assertion of the welfare of the Metro Manila urban poor settlers.
2. Put up satellite centers of Demolition Watch specifically in urban poor areas where the residents are target for eviction.
3. Gather broadest support through various initiatives for Demolition Watch center.
4. Release a support statement, in as many avenues possible, on various issues concerning rights and the general welfare of the underprivileged urban settlers.
The Demolition Watch center
1. Will serve as advocacy center doing education work amongst the urban settlers facing dislocation, and the concerned public.
2. Will serve as an info and study center doing researches on the situation, rights and welfare of the urban poor sector.
3. Will serve as legal-paralegal center.
Demolition Watch Is an initiative and network of various community-based organizations, sectors including women, youth, professionals and the church, individuals and personalities deeply concerned on the massive dislocation of families in Metro Manila due to the on-going and impending implementation of the government’s privatization and infrastructure projects.
The underprivileged urban settlers, the populace categorized by the government as residing in “danger zones” comprises 15% of the 12 million Metro Manila residents, or 1.8 million people. Vice President Noli de Castro in his speech at the World Urban Forum last June 22, 2006 unabashedly announced that 1.4 million of the Metro’s urban poor face eviction and their communities will be extricated to give way to privatization and construction of various infrastructure projects of the government. Such is the largest ever dislocation of families to happen in Philippine history.
And it is quite disconcerting. The sheer numbers of individuals to be dislocated are reasons enough for anyone to rethink about supporting the foreign-funded infrastructure projects and sneaky maneuvers to privatize government assests. But for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo: the welfare of the urban poor settlers is last in the list of priorities. In her 2007 State of the Nation address (SONA), the president happily enumerates her priority projects, all promising economic growth via privatization of government properties and construction of numerous infrastructures; and none saying what will happen to over a million people set to be dislocated in Metro Manila alone.
Equally disturbing is the recently released assessment of the Geneva-based Center on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), an international NGO working closely with the United Nations to uphold the housing rights of communities, on the record of the Philippine government as one of the world’s three worst housing rights violator in 2006, along with Nigeria and Greece. COHRE scored the country for what it called as its blatant disregard for the human right to adequate housing and continued failure to abide by its international legal obligations.
International law, particularly Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, provides those facing eviction with the right to consultation and adequate relocation. By adequate relocation, the covenant states that the site they are moved to must already have potable water, electricity, sewerage facilities, efficient solid waste disposal system, and access to transportation facilities. It is also preferred that the relocation sites are located in near-city and in-city areas that are close to the relocatees’ sources of livelihood.
The Philippine National Railways Modernization and Rehabilitation Program (PNR-MRP), one of the priority projects of the government, is one example of its patent disrespect of the rights and callousness on the welfare of the urban poor. Registered in NHA list are 104,000 families residing along the railways (north and south), automatically excluding the unregistered and bigger portion of the railways populace. The unregistered populace is conservatively estimated as twice the number of the registered.
Being unregistered, even though they also will be evicted, they are not included in the government’s show of effecting relocation for the displaced families. They are not even given due consideration. In Caloocan City, only those few families with own electricity and water connections are being included in the NHA list as it conducts surveys. There are also cases wherein those households without their own CR are being automatically excluded. An unreasonable and iniquitous regulations it is of the NHA, indeed. What has happened to the unregistered railways folks evicted in the north segment of PNR-MRP, no one knows, but surely their lives are worse today than ever before.
This is all but a show, the government relocation program, and an anomalously expensive one. The inhumane condition on the relocation sites, sold at high price to the displaced railway folks, is driving the relocatees to go back to where they came from. In a news report of Bulatlat.com, one relocatee described their condition in the relocation site in Southville, Cabuyao, Laguna as “we’re like animals dumped here”.
COHRE’s representatives who visited the same relocation site, the Southville, reported the following:
1. most of the relocatees have been moved to relocation sites where living conditions are appalling due to a lack of basic services such as potable water, electricity and sanitation facilities;
2. large numbers of houses at the Southville were with no roofs and only dirt floors;
3. six infants from Southville have died of pneumonia, sepsis and diarrhea;
4. extremely difficult situations for families to earn a livelihood after being relocated far from their places of work in Metro Manila;
5. inadequate school and health services, which in Southville meant that part of the school is housed in a tent, no water for two small toilets, children must pay for drinking water, and teachers have to work for three four-hour shifts to serve over 3,000 schoolchildren.
The situation dares and calls us to partake in the initiative to defend the rights and assert welfare of the urban poor. In lieu of the governments’ plan, which is to evict the 1.4 million people from different urban poor communities, a network of concerned groups and individuals must stand up. Thus the Demolition Watch has been conceptualized as an apt effort.
Objectives of Demolition Watch
1. Put up the Demolition Watch center, that will actively advocates for the defense of rights and assertion of the welfare of the Metro Manila urban poor settlers.
2. Put up satellite centers of Demolition Watch specifically in urban poor areas where the residents are target for eviction.
3. Gather broadest support through various initiatives for Demolition Watch center.
4. Release a support statement, in as many avenues possible, on various issues concerning rights and the general welfare of the underprivileged urban settlers.
The Demolition Watch center
1. Will serve as advocacy center doing education work amongst the urban settlers facing dislocation, and the concerned public.
2. Will serve as an info and study center doing researches on the situation, rights and welfare of the urban poor sector.
3. Will serve as legal-paralegal center.