Gordon: Letting Kadamay keep houses 'ticket to anarchy'

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Richard Gordon disagreed on Wednesday with President Rodrigo Duterte's decision to allow members of an urban poor group to keep housing units in Bulacan that they occupied, saying that this was a “ticket to anarchy.”

Speaking on ANC, Gordon said that the president’s decision would send a wrong signal to people as he emphasized that nobody should take the law in their own hands.

Gordon said that the president was falling on his sword with his decision to give the government housing units to people who claimed them for themselves.

“My God. Kinukuha yung bahay na ginawa ng NHA [National Housing Authority]. Ibibigay mo dun sa mga nanggugulo. Bad signal, Mr. President. Again you are falling on your own sword. Nadadapa ka sa sarili mong espada because pagka-ganyan, that’s a ticket to what you call anarchy,” he said.

On Tuesday, Duterte, speaking during the Philippine Army’s 120^th anniversary in Fort Bonifacio, asked police and military housing beneficiaries to just let go of the houses taken by members of the Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) to avoid a possibly violent confrontation between them and the authorities.

“I will look into the matter seriously and I will ask you soldiers and the policemen, let go of those houses. Just give it to them. They are just poor,” the chief executive said as he vowed to provide better and bigger homes to the families of police and military personnel.

Members of the urban group took and occupied around 6,000 houses in locations in Bulacan originally meant for policemen and soldiers.

Kadamay justified their takeover, saying that the houses were unoccupied. Kadamay also complained about the government's failure to provide housing to the poor. Many of these poor families live on streets, under bridges and banks of creeks, but none of them have staged a takeover similar to what Kadamay did.

This move by Kadamay prompted the NHA to issue an eviction notice but and members barricaded themselves in the housing areas.

The NHA later on agreed not to implement their eviction order.

Gordon said: “Anybody taking the law into their own hands. These people are not above the law, and we should not do that.”

Gordon, chair of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, presided over hearings last year on alleged extrajudicial killings linked to the government's war on drugs. 

He said he saw violations of the constitutional rights of people being apprehended, including the absence of lawyers when executing affidavits or confessions. He said, however, that there was no evidence that the drug-related deaths were sanctioned by the state.