Binay discovers 6 housing units for soldiers substandard

ZAMBOANGA CITY - Vice President Jejomar Binay ordered the demolition and rebuilding of six housing units for soldiers and police in Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur that were discovered to be substandard.

Binay, chairperson of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and the National Housing Authority (NHA), said the inferior units were part of the 1,300 houses readied for the soldiers.

“We have inspected the units constructed in the AFP and PNP (Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police) housing project in Pagadian and found that only six units have problems,” Binay said in a statement.

According to Binay, they saw that the technology used in some of the units were substandard.

With the discovery, Binay ordered the NHA to ensure that the AFP and PNP housing projects are not substandard before they are turned over to the intended beneficiaries.

The vice president also clarified that the NHA has yet to turn over the housing units in Pagadian because they still need to go through final inspections before they are given to the beneficiaries.

"The AFP/PNP Housing project in Pagadian is not yet complete. We need to finish all the units first before we turn them over to the beneficiaries,” according to Binay in his statement.

The project is part of President Benigno Aquino III's administrative order signed in April 2011 for the AFP and PNP housing projects, which mandated the NHA to implement and manage housing projects for more than 260,000 police and military personnel.

Each house is a two-storey unit designed in row houses constructed in a 40 square meter lot and worth some P140,000 each.

The selected beneficiary will have to pay P200 per month for the first five years and the remaining 30 years of payment will be computed with a compounded interest method to produce equally affordable amortization ranging from P400 to P800 only.

The phase 1 of the project was completed in 2011 were some 8,000 housing units were constructed in Bulacan for military and police forces in Northern Luzon and 8,000 units in Cavite and Laguna for those in Southern Luzon and another 5,000 in Rizal.