Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
At the turnover of the first 500 houses in La Paz Homes 2

Delivered in Trece Martires, Cavite, November 6, 1994]

Sheltering the Filipino

I CAME INTO OFFICE knowing that housing would be one of the most important and pressing challenges of my Administration. Today we still have a serious backlog of about 3.8 million houses.

Thus I have identified housing as among the top priorities of my social reform agenda. In the 1993-98 National Shelter Program, I have set the goal of providing 1.2 million units of housing assistance. And I am pleased that major developers such as La Paz Homes Cavite Development Corporation have heeded my call.

People-friendly, crime-free and clean

I believe that housing projects should provide families with more than just a roof over their heads. They must be well planned and properly implemented and maintained to prevent their degeneration into ghettos. Above all, the neighborhood must remain a people-friendly, crime-free and clean community.

For this reason, I appreciate the philosophy of the La Paz group in developing La Paz Homes 2 along the so-called Pacita model.

This model ensures sustainability by building dwellings on the principle that low-cost housing is not low-quality housing. This model also provides for infrastructure of first-class standards—open spaces, sites for churches, schools and hospitals, commercial and recreational centers, cottage industry strips and other urban amenities.

While I welcome this philosophy of development, I realize it results in additional expense for the private developers, thus leading to higher selling prices.

But I am also aware that affordability is the key to making homes available to minimum wage earners and other low- and middle-income families who aspire to homeownership.

Therefore, to attain the twin objectives of quality and affordability I hereby direct the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) to review the current limits on housing loans and interest rates of Government lending institutions to ease income qualification requirements and reduce monthly amortizations.

In addition, we must find ways to effect deregulation of the policies governing house and lot package designs and sizes to encourage developers to be more creative and flexible.

Two concepts of housing

This should be made without sacrificing structural integrity, and leave the home buyers as the final judge of their acceptability.

To give a greater momentum to housing, which is labor-intensive and moves many industries because of its strong multiplier effects, the Board of Investments must look into the inclusion of housing in the Investment Priorities Plan to help developers maintain reasonable selling prices by availing themselves of proper incentives.

To maximize land use for housing, I also direct the HUDCC, together with the Department of Public Works and Highways, to work on two concepts: 1) using high-tech methods to build multistory residential buildings for affordable, socialized housing, and 2) increasing the supply of land and lowering the cost of properties fronting national and provincial highways, by building access roads to interior areas that the Department of Agrarian Reform will allow for housing and industrial development.

The Government by itself cannot solve the housing crisis facing the nation today. The private sector must play an equally important role in providing adequate housing for homeless Filipinos, as exemplified today by the La Paz group, toward our country’s economic recovery and sustained growth, just like in improving productivity and increasing exports.

Developers and manufacturers can take the lead in using innovative, modern methods of construction and indigenous materials that will help reduce costs and save time.

Utility companies can do their share by extending concessional terms and incentives, and waiving burdensome prerequisites.

For Government’s part, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of the Interior and Local Government must establish a stronger monitoring system to maintain at reasonable levels the prices of basic materials needed by housing. We must dismantle the traditional culture in business where cartelized practices and selfish behavior create an artificial regime of high prices when construction is in full swing.

A change of attitudes and values

But while the policy and financial features of our housing policies are being put in place, they will not bring us closer to our shared vision of “Philippines 2000” unless some undesirable attitudes prevalent in both the Government and the private sectors are changed. I refer to the need to eliminate extortion, bribery, misrepresentation and fraud attendant on housing and construction.

Moreover, the large and yet growing backlog we face in housing demands quick action from all of us. We must have a sense of urgency and a sense of responsiveness to replace the usual habits of complacency and bahala na. Time is the most precious commodity that directly affects the costs for Government, developers and homeowners alike. And delays imperil a project’s viability.

We must all have a social commitment. We must shed greed and the desire to make instant profits by treating housing both as a long-term solution to prevailing social ills and as an effective contributor to our people’s welfare and prosperity.

Landowners should avoid bloating the values of properties while the developers, in striving to make their selling prices affordable, should maintain the high quality of their projects.

The new homeowners must exercise diligence for establishing good community discipline, especially cleaning and greening, proper waste management, water and power conservation, and other neighborly practices.

“Social pact for housing”

After all, these homes are your homes. The money paid to acquire them may well represent the single biggest investment of your lives. Maintaining a clean, healthy and well-organized community assures the appreciation of each family’s investment.

All of the above-cited directives and appeals are embodied in the Ramos Administration’s National Shelter Program, which is a major component of our Medium-term Philippine Development Plan for 1993-98.

Let me take this opportunity, therefore, to call for a “social pact for housing” among all the housing-related industries, homeowners’ associations and Government agencies. This pact will have the end in view of setting up a unified and concerted approach to achieve the goals of our National Shelter Program and our shared vision of “Philippines 2000.”

I have called for a multisectoral people’s summit on housing to be undertaken in January 1995 to expedite the actualization of our action programs for sheltering our masses.