Vice Pres. Binay distributes titles to Pinatubo victims with Mayor Pamintuan.
Photo by Ding Cervantes
ANGELES CITY- Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) chairman Vice Pres.Jejomar Binay said here yesterday he was confident that the country’s about 3.6 million housing backlog would be reduced by at least one million by the time his term ends in 2016.
In an interview with Punto after he distributed titles to Mt. Pinatubo victims at the EPZA resettlement here, Binay said that to significantly reduce the backlog, the government is now constructing more affordable housing units.
“We are constructing new models. In fact, under Pag-Ibig housing, we are constructing units that cost only P200,000. Usually the lowest cost of Pag-Ibig units is P400,000,” he said.
Binay was here yesterday to distribute 175 land titles to families already occupying houses on 94-square-meter lots at the EPZA resettlement in Barangay Pulung Cacutud here. The resettlement was built for families displaced by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.
Noting that the resettlement had bigger lots than many private subdivisions and had complete public facilities, Binay urged that such sites built for Mt. Pinatubo victims be referred to as townsites to remove the stigma of their being destitute.
Former Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, during her term, worked out for the free distribution of the house-and-lot packages to Mt. Pinatubo victims in resettlement areas in various parts of Central Luzon.
At the same time, Binay ordered National Housing Authority (NHA) general manager Chito Cruz to speed up the completion and distribution of land titles to all qualified residents of some 16 resettlement areas in Pampanga, Tarlac and Zambales.
He noted, however, that families who had irregularly occupied the housing units would not be given titles.
“Here at EPZA resettlement, there are 481 families who are illegal occupants who bought the so-called rights of the original beneficiaries. You will not be given titles, while those who sold their rights would be disqualified from housing benefits,” he stressed.
Binay noted that since 1994, only 358 families at the EPZA resettlement have received their land titles.
While 175 more titles were distributed yesterday, he said over 1,000 other families at EPZA still had to get theirs.
This, even as he appealed to beneficiaries not to pawn or sell their titles. “Not everybody gets this chance to receive a house and lot for free,” he stressed.
