[asia-apec 151] APEC-DEMOLITIONS IN MANILA UPDATE - 2

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APEC RELATED DEMOLITIONS IN MANILA:  AN UPDATE

President Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) Campaign to rid Metro Manila of
Eyesores for the APEC meeting

     June 16 President Ramos launches campaign to remove "eyesores"
that will affect 16,000 squatter families (or 96,000 people at the
average of 6:1) residing in communities along the routes the APEC
delegates will use during the upcoming November APEC meeting.

     June 26-27 demolitions at Del Pan.  Manila City Hall demolished
three hundred families but would not relocate them, saying their
interpretation of the Urban Development and Housing Act (R.A. 7279)
reads that people living in danger areas are not covered by the law.
The demoltions were stopped when former Senator Aquilino Pimentel and
SALIGAN lawyers went to court to seek an injunction from RTC Judge
Concepcion Alarcion-Vergara.  The judge ruled in favor of City Hall
but upheld the memorandum of agreement entered into by the people and
the government regarding temporary housing in Barrio Minuyan, Sapang
Palay.

     Executive Secretary Ruben Torres and Press Secretary Hector
Villanueva issued clarifications, saying the demolitions were not
because of APEC.  The demolitions they said were due to on-going
government projects.

     In July some 40 families living under the Tambo Bridge were
demolished.  Some received P2,000 financial assistance and were
allowed to transfer to nearby places (the riverbank and on the road).

July 11 FVR orders Demolition Moratorium

     President Fidel V. Ramos met some urban poor leaders and Bishop
Teodoro Bacani auxiliary bishop of Metro Manila at Malacanang Palace.
He calls for a moratorium on demolitions and tells the group that he
wanted to meet a more representative group of urban poor leaders in
two weeks time.

     The list below of demolitions shows that the president's
instruction was not taken seriously by other government officials.

Communities Demolished

1.  Damayang Lagi, Quezon City

     Date:  July 30 and August 2, 1996
     Affected Families:  3,300 families
     Ordered the demolition:  the courts and the owner, Titan Dragon
                              Group
     Land:  private land
     relocation:  none but some, not all, were given financial
                  assistance

2.  Tanglaw, Mandaluyong

     Date:  August 2, 1996
     Affected families:  18
     Ordered the demolition:  land owner
     Land:  private land
     Relocation:  none

3.  Barangay Pinyahan, Quezon City

     Date:  August 5, 1996
     Affected families:  334
     Demolition conducted the the Economic Intelligence Bureau
     Status of the land: government land
     Relocation:  temporary relocation to Minuyan, Sapang Palay

4.  Sitio Militar, Bahay Toro, Quezon City

     Date:  first week of August
     Affected families:  300
     ordered the demolition:  local government
     status of the land:  private
     relocation:  none

5.  Upper and Lower Hawaii, Better Living Subdivision, Paranaque

     Date:  August 8 & 9
     Affected families:  114
     ordered the demolition:  Better Living Homeowners Association
     status of the land:  private
     relocation:  none

6.  Tugatog, Malabon

     Date:  August 13, 1996
     affected families:  20
     ordered the demolition:  land owner
     status of the land:  private
     People stopped the demolition and rebuilt their shanties.

7.  Muralla River, C-3, Navotas

     Date:  August 19-20
     affected families:  200
     ordered the demolition:  local government
     status of the land:  government (danger zone)
     relocation:  none

8.  Del Pan, Manila

     date:  June 26-27
     affected families;  268
     ordered the demolition:  local government of Manila
     status of the land:  government
     relocation:  temporary relocation to Minuyan, Sapang Palay

9.  R-10, Barangay 123, Manila

     date:  August 19, 1996
     affected families:  19
     status of the land:  government owned
     relocation:  Norzagaray, Bulacan
     situation:  four families came back from the relocation because
                 their children were not accepted in the local school
                 and the place is too far from the job sites.

10.  Minuyan, Sapang Palay, Bulacan

     date:  first week of September
     affected families:  100
     ordered the demolition:  National Housing Authority
     status of the land:  government owned
     relocation:  none
     situation:  the families are former residents of the place for
                 10-20 years but were removed because the place will
                 be used as a temporary relocation site for Metro
                 Manila relocatees.

11.  Pasay Reclamation, Pasay City

     date:  first week of August
     affected families:  10
     ordered the demolition:  national government
     relocation:  none

12.  Tambo Creek, Paranaque

     date:  first week of July
     affected families:  40
     ordered the demolition:  local government &
                              Department of Public Works and Highways
     status of the land:  government owned
     situation:  the forty families are part of the 87 families living
                 under the Tambo Bridge.  They were allowed to
                 temporarily occupy a nearby sidewalk and a river bank.
                 Some were given P2,000 as financial assistance.

Note:  TOTAL 4,723 families or 28,338 people (at 1 family : 6 members)

List of Communities Scheduled for Demolitions

1.  Tambo, Paranaque

     Some 585 families have received notices of demolition.  APEC is
mentioned as the reason for the demolitions.  Relocation:  temporary
in Minuyan, Sapang Palay, Bulacan.

2.  Electrical Road, Tambo, Pasay

     Another 300 families have received notices of demolition on the
Pasay side of Tambo Creek.  Relocation:  temporary in Minuyan, Sapang
Palay, Bulacan.

3.  PNR, South Bangkal, Makati

     94 families were given demolition notices by the local
government.  Relocation:  temporary in Minuyan, Sapang Palay, Bulacan.

4.  Olandes, Marikina

     Some 300 families were given demolition notices.

5.  R-10, Manila and Navotas

     Isauro Pumarada of the DPWH has told NGOs and the people that the
government will evict some 8,500 families.  Around 6,000 of them are
in the city of Manila.  They will be removed before the APEC.

     Relocation will be somewhere in Norzagaray which government is
still negotiating to buy.  The land is undeveloped.

Note:  Total 9,779 families or 58,674 people.

PO and NGO Response

     Individual NGOs, such as, the Urban Poor Associates which is
involved in helping people to defend their housing rights, help
individual communities resist forced evictions.  They combine legal
(going to court) and extra-legal (pressure tactics) to stop evictions.
They go to the media.  They also go to congressional committees.

Area-wide mass actions.

     This happened in R-10 when two urban poor federations, Damayan ng
mga Maralitang Pilipinong Api (DAMPA) and Anti-Demolition Coalition
(ADC), formed an alliance.  They conducted leaders meetings and
workshops to find out the people's demands, which were:  stop
evictions while no acceptable relocation is ready, provide in-city
relocation, and if no in-city relocation is as yet available, to put
up high fances tohide the poor communities from the view of the APEC
delegates.  On September 20, some 300 of them conducted a protest
march along the length of r-10 and blocked the road for forty five
minutes, creating a monstrous traffic jam.  Some five hundred young
children, mostly grade schoolers, affixed their signatures to a letter
sent to President Clinton, Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto
and another letter given to Manila City Mayor Alfredo Lim.

     At the National Government Center, site of the biggest squatter
population in Metro Manila (40,000 squatter families, the squatter
families conducted protest marches within the area, and last October 3
some 3,000 of them lighted torches and candles on the length of
Commonwealth Avenue.

     Last September 18, more than two hundred relocatees from the
temporary relocaiton site in Minuyan, Sapang Palay, Bulacan held
rellies in front of the offices of the National Housing Authority in
Quezon City and the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council
in Makati.  They decried government's failure to fulfill its promise
to give them a decent and humane relocation site.  They said
government removed them from a danger zone (sidewalk) but transferred
them to a "death" zone.

     At the time of rally, the relocated people had been in Minuyan
for a month but 86 families received bunk rooms, while the rest had to
make lean-tos on the corridors of the abandoned warehouse.  Their
water supply is dirty and as a result many children suffered cholera.
Many children also had dengue fever.  There are no job and livelihood
opportunities near the temporary relocation site.  Transportation
expense to and from Manila costs nearly forty pesos ( most earn the
daily minimum wage of P150).  There is no clinic or hospital near the
place.

     More than 100 poor people rallied September 13 in front of the
office of the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF) of Japan which
is funding the upgrading of the railroad tracks of the Philippine
National Railways, a government corporation.  They oppose their
relocation to the temporary relocation site in Minuyan, Sapang Palay.

Sector-wide mobilization.

     Last September 24, some 10,000 squatters held a rally at Mendiola
Bridge in Malacanang.  It was the biggest urban poor mass aciton to
date under the Ramos administration.

     They protested the upsurge of demolitions, some of which were
APEC-related.  They also wanted to show their displeasure at the snub
from President Ramos who has not responded to their repeated requests
for a dialogue on demolitions and housing.
@Via IMP v0.94 6:751/401.0, 10 Oct 1996 at 19:20:33
@Via Squish 1.11 6:751/401, Thu Oct 10 1996 at 23:21 UTC