‘No relocation, no demolition’ even under Duterte’s drive for golden age of infrastructure

The "no relocation, no demolition" policy will remain in effect even under the Duterte administration's drive for a "golden age of infrastructure," the chairman of the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor said on Thursday.

Terry Ridon said the PCUP had final say the issuance of clearances for demolitions.

“So, under the leadership of the President, he has made it clear that there will be no demolitions without relocation,” Ridon said.

“So even if we speak about big-ticket infrastructure projects, I think part of the spending will most definitely be made towards relocation of many of the affected informal settler families,” he added.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno has said that the Duterte administration would spend P8.2 trillion for the ambitious infrastructure plan.

Ridon said that the government needed over a trillion to address the housing backlog of 5.6 million units.

“‘Yung backlog ho ngayon, based on HUDCC data, 5.6 million po ‘yung backlog ‘no by the end of the term of the President," Ridon said.

"So basically, we will have to be able to produce a million new houses by the end of the term. And we are talking about a staggering amount of funds ‘no,” he said.

“And ‘yun pong sa pagtataya po ng PCUP, I think we would really need maybe around almost more than a trillion to respond to the housing crisis ‘no. So and what we wanted to say is, the current level of spending for housing is clearly not enough to respond to even a large percentage of the problem of housing,” Ridon said. —NB, GMA News