Dizon supports bill to unify housing agencies

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Councilor Alvin Dizon wants the Cebu City Government to declare formal support to the creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a bill filed in Congress.

The bill seeks to consolidate, rationalize and coordinate the functions of the government’s key shelter agencies.

In a resolution to be filed during the council’s regular session on Wednesday, Dizon, who chairs the council’s committee on housing, enjoins the council to take “cognizance of the paramount importance of the creation of one rationalized and unified body that will address all kinds of housing concerns of the citizenry especially the underprivileged in the urban areas.”

The resolution also wants to urge the fifteenth Congress to act favorably and expeditiously in passing the said bill into law.

The bill was introduced by former Philippine President and Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the second district of Pampanga and Rep. Diosdado Macapagal Arroyo of the second district of Camarines Sur.

The Office of President Benigno Aquino has included the bill among the priority bills that it wants Congress to approve this year.

When the bill is passed, they expect to streamline the bureaucracy in the key shelter agencies which are the National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation (NHMFC), Home Guaranty Corporation (HGC), Home Development Mutual Fund (HDMF), National Housing Authority (NHA) and Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB).

These agencies have their own sets or layers of officials. They are under the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) which also has its own sets of officers. (FREEMAN)