May 18, 2009. Kilos-Maralita (Movement for Social Protection of the Poor) criticized today Quezon City Mayor Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte for continuously playing deaf on urban poor’s demand for genuine moratorium on demolition of their dwellings.

“We are very disappointed with Mayor Belmonte for his apparent lack of concern to the plight of his urban poor constituents. Everyday, hundreds of thousands of urban poor in Quezon City face the threat of eviction from their dwellings due to absence of security of land/housing tenure,” said Kilos Maralita coordinator Von Mesina.

According to data from Quezon City’s Urban Poor Affairs Office, there are more or less 800,000 urban poor in Quezon City. This number represents forty percent of the two million total population in Quezon City and twenty percent of the entire urban poor population in Metro Manila.

On 09 March 2009, the Quezon City Council passed an Ordinance imposing a moratorium on evictions and demolitions of structures used for dwelling purposes and other measures to protect their right to adequate housing.

Kilos-Maralita claimed that there were apparent flaws or weaknesses in said ordinance such as lacking in substance that will truly effect moratorium on demolition and most of all, once enacted, many urban poor areas including North and East Triangles where there are about 12,000 families that will not be covered by the ordinance as its implementation is prospective. Despite this, the urban poor saw the ordinance as an attempt to, at least, temporarily halt demolition of urban poor dwellings while amendatory law to the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) can be deliberated and passed in the Congress.

“Mayor Belmonte’s veto of the weak proposed ordinance on moratorium on demolition on 23 April 2009 was a reflection of his lack of sincerity to address the dwelling problems of the poor,” said Mesina. In light of the scrapping of the proposed ordinance, the urban poor alliance reiterated its call to the City Council to pass a city ordinance that will effect a genuine moratorium on evictions and demolitions of informal dwellings or settlements of the poor in Quezon City.

Specifically, Kilos Maralita demands that the following be reflected under separate sections of the new city ordinance:

• conditions for lifting of “cease and desist” order on demolition and evictions will include “… until an appropriate resolution or policy guidelines ensuring full compliance of the above-mentioned mandatory requirements of the UDHA are issued and/or appropriate amendatory law is passed in the Congress” as what was written in the Resolution of the Commission on Human Rights.

• All lands, whether private or public and with or without ongoing projects, that are currently inhabited by the urban poor must be subjected to moratorium on demolition…

• An oversight or implementing body will be created to do the monitoring and ensuring compliance with the provisions of the ordinance and shall include representatives from the urban poor sector and non-government organizations/people’s organizations in its composition Kilos Maralita assert that the poor also have a right to the city, to participate in the development planning by the government, and to full social protection especially employment, food, and access to essential services.

Kilos Maralita asserts that the poor also have a right to the city, to participate in the development planning by the government, and to full social protection especially employment, food, and access to essential services.