JV urged: Stop Smokey Mountain project sale

MANILA, Philippines - Members of an urban poor group at the Smokey Mountain dump called on Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito on Thursday to stop a government housing agency from selling about 121,000 square meters of the dump in Tondo, Manila.

In a letter addressed to Ejercito, chairman of the Senate committee on urban development, housing and resettlement, Nenita Santiago, representing the beneficiaries of Smokey Mountain Development and Reclamation Project, said the agencies’ proposed plan to sell and develop the SMDRP’s common areas would deprive them of their livelihood.

The group is blocking the Home Guaranty Corp. (HGC) from selling the SMDRP’s common areas for a minimum bid of P938.7 million.

Santiago said the National Housing Authority (NHA) was the primary implementor of the project since the time of the late President Corazon Aquino.

The NHA promised to give the SMDRP beneficiaries livelihood support but has yet to fulfill its promise, she said.

Fellow urban poor leaders Joseph Sarmiento, Aurea Gunda, and Normida Reyes also echoed Santiago’s call, saying some 2,500 families living at the government-assisted medium-rise housing project will be affected by plans to sell the Smokey Mountain property. They have been living in the area for about 10 years.

They said the property for sale also includes the roads used by the project’s beneficiaries. 

They said that most of them have not received the land titles for their homes even if they have paid the amortization.

The group is asking Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 6 Judge Jansen Rodriguez to issue a permanent injunction against the HGC. On July 27, Rodriguez issued a temporary restraining order against HGC to stop the firm from conducting a bidding to sell the property.