LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Protect the housing rights of urban poor

Honorable Gwen Garcia

Governor

Province of Cebu

Greetings for peace and development!

The undersigned Panaghugpong sa mga Kabus Taga-Dakbayan, an urban poor federation and a non-government people's organization wish a happy birthday. May you have many, many more birthdays to come in your lifetime. We hope your good governance in the public service respond to the needs of the marginalized sector of our society.

We wish you can give a gift to the poor, the basic social needs, especially to our poor dwellers in Province-Owned-Lots. May we be given an opportunity to have our present dwelling sites as beneficiaries of 1993 Provincial Ordinance No. 93-1 that you temporarily suspended last 2004 to open up again for disposition to us. The Philippines, a pioneer signature of United Nations Organization of December 10.1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) to quote in Article no.25.1 proclaims that: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."

Adequate housing is universally viewed as one of the basic human needs as the UN Center for Human Settlements estimates throughout the world over one billion people live in inadequate housing and with an excess of 100 million people living in conditions of homelessness. Based on 1990 Decade Assessment Report of the World Health Organization (WHO), 1.2 billion people in developing countries do not have access to drinking water and 1.8 billion people live without access to adequate sanitation.. These situations only reveal the need of a global struggle to fulfill the right t housing. The year 2000 Global Strategy for Shelter has propelled to push the housing issues forward and had resulted in housing rights being placed prominently on the human rights agenda of the United Nations. The right to adequate housing forms the cornerstone of the Global Shelter Strategy: "The right to housing is universally recognized by the community of nations…All nations without exception, have some form of obligation in the shelter sector, as exemplified by their creation of housing ministries or housing agencies, by their allocation of funds to the housing sector, and by their policies, programmes, and projects…All citizens of all States, poor as they may be, have a right to expect their governments to be concerned about their shelter needs, and to accept a fundamental obligation to protect and improve houses and neighborhoods, rather than damage or destroy them. Adequate housing is defined as: Adequate privacy, adequate space, adequate security, adequate ventilation, adequate lighting, adequate basic infrastructure and adequate location with regard to work and basic facilities, all at reasonable cost."

We are hoping, Madame Governor, that the 4,148 beneficiaries that availed to purchase our occupied lots provided in 1993 P.O. no. 93-1 have an equal protection given to you for us to have our right to security of land tenure, be given an opportunity in your development plans to conform to our basic social need our right to housing.

Historically, the province as caretaker, was originally made to open the vast tracts of land when late President Ramon Magsaysay on March 15,1957 wrote Presidential Proclamation no.394 to become alienable and disposable and revoked the former late US Governor General Francis Burton Harrisson's June 2,1918 written Executive Order no.20. It was handed down to the lots of the former Banilad Friar Lands Estate that were formerly non-alienable or non-disposable.

On April 28, 1956 a great fire hit central and foreshore areas in Cebu City that denied the fire victims, urban poor people, to reconstruct their dwelling sites. The vast tracts of land became the permanent dwelling sites of the misplaced urban poor.

Hoping you can make a response like what the late President Ramon Magsaysay did to the needs of the poor, their permanent dwelling sites they actually occupy now.

Hope you can help us protect our housing rights.

Thank you and more power!

Ramilito Inopiquez

Chairman

Socrates Rota Pepino

Secretary General