Land acquisition for housing projects for Marawi victims still not complete

The government has yet to finish the process of acquiring parcels of land on which the housing units for the victims of the Marawi siege will be constructed, more than a year after the battle there ended.

During the inaugural meeting of the House Committee on Disaster Management, Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) secretary general Falconi Millar said that by the end of November, land will be acquired for the construction of 2,000 permanent housing units provided by the San Miguel Foundation.

However, the government has yet to start acquiring the land on which the 1,500 permanent housing units to be provided by UN Habitat will be built.

Millar added that before the construction of the housing units, the parcels of land have to be developed first, which will take another six months.

"The land acquisition will be completed within the month, and that will be followed by the land development right away in partnership with the local government unit," he said.

Millar said the slow process of acquiring lands, in the case of the San Miguel Foundation housing project, was due to the many claimants of the land they have identified for permanent housing.

"The situation wherein a property in Barangay Guimba would be paid already, the negotiation has already concluded. However, a lot of claimants surfaced, a lot of conflicting claims with regard to ownership of the land," he said.

"We didn't pursue the acquisition of the property in Barangay Guimba. We looked for other sites, which is in Barangay Mapintao and Barangay Kilala, and this time, there are no conflicting claimants," he added.

The government is targeting to construct 4,050 permanent shelters for Marawi siege victims, 136 of which are already completed.

Aside from these, the government will also put up 5,462 transitory shelters for the displaced residents, of which 1,522 are completed. — BM, GMA News