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NATIONAL HOUSING AUTHORITY

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Vitas relocation ends - - - a success!!!

"ANG trabaho po ay gumagaan kapag ang ginagawa natin ay alam nating tama," said NHA General Manager Atty. Chito M. Cruz in his congratulatory address during the culminating activity held last 24 August 2011 for the successful humane, orderly and peaceful relocation operations of Vitas tenement residents.

Amidst strong initial resistance from Vitas occupants, a 26-day relocation operations spelled the success of them abandoning the DIOSDADO MACAPAGAL TENEMENT. As early as 1990s this had been condemned by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) where a magnitude of five hundred seventy (570) families resided. From March 30-August 18, 2011, voluntary relocations transpired where a total of 445 families were resettled to Towerville VI in Gaya-Gaya, City of San Jose del Monte, Bulacan. Also nineteen (19) families availed the "Balik Probinsiya Program" while 106 families transferred to other places.

Recalling the March 24, 2011 dialogue with the Vice-President and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) Chariperson Jejomar C. Binay with Vitas tenants, he said, "we must ensure the welfare and safety of the residents in Vitas Tenement considering that the housing project is already in bad shape. In the light of the recent earthquake in Japan, we must relocate the residents to soundly-constructed housing projects."

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) declared the tenement building as unsafe, high risk, ruinous and dangerous to its tenants. The Vitas Tenement (also known as Diosdado Macapagal Tenement) is a seven-storey building constructed in 1963. It addressed the housing shortage in Manila and housed low-income families living in squatter colonies.

As Ms. Rose Nartates, Officer-in-Charge and Head of the Project Team, National Capital Region – West Sector, puts it "this is our first experience of an en masse eviction from an enclosed tenement building. And this could not have been made possible without the strong partnership, commitment and full support of NHA partner agencies or members of Local Inter-Agency Committee (LIAC) namely City of Manila Local Government Unit, HUDCC, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Department of Education (DepEd), Manila Police District (MPD), Meralco and Maynilad."

Ensuring a peaceful, humane and orderly relocation operations, NHA under RA 7279 Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) is mandated to provide technical and other forms of assistance to local government units (LGUs) in the implementation of housing programs, to undertake identification, acquisition and disposition of lands for socialized housing, and to undertake relocation and resettlement of families with LGUs.

In the proposed 2012 NHA budget, a provision of new medium rise building (MRB) construction is considered, thereby giving the Vitas Tenants a chance to return to Tondo.

The former Vitas tenants, now Towerville VI homeowners are waiting for the Department of Social Welfare and Development's (DSWD) - Self-Employment Assistance – Kaunlaran (SEA-K) livelihood project implementation. SEA-K is a savings and a socialized credit with zero percent interest rate that is payable in six months.








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