Nightmare at North Railway as Thousands of Evicted Families Go Hungry in Relocation Sites

NIGHTMARE AT NORTH RAIL
Cost of Resettling 40,000 Families Deliberately Hidden
by ALECKS P. PABICO
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Our latest report is a two-part story on the problems besetting the relocation of 40,000 families to make way for the North Rail project. The relocation of all these people — twice the population of San Juan, Metro Manila — is expected to cost at least P6.6 billion. But it is a hidden expense, as it was not added to the total project cost. It is also not clear where the money to fund the resettlement will come from.
The former head of the North Luzon Railways Corp., the government company that is rebuilding the North Rail, says that the resettlement costs were deliberately kept hidden “to make it appear that the project cost is low.”

Last week, the Senate began hearings on the North Rail project. So far, the testimonies have focused on the allegedly onerous and illegal provisions of the North Rail contract. Little attention has been paid to the fact that rehabilitating the 80-kilometer North Rail means evicting more than 200,000 people.

The National Housing Authority says that it has only P1.6 billion for resettlement. The rest will have to be funded from a loan from yet another government corporation, the National Development Company, which will in turn be paid by the annual appropriations to NHA from the national budget.

The second part of this report focuses on the problems at the resettlement site: corruption, inefficiency and a failure to inform and consult with affected families. Many of the evicted families now face starvation as they have been relocated to places far from where they work and where there are few jobs available.

The NHA has also been accused of selling overpriced construction materials and of getting into sweetheart contracts with landowners, local governments and site developers.
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Informal settlers along the abandoned PNR railways in Bgy. Tabing Ilog in Marilao are among some 13,000 Bulacan families being relocated to give way to the multi-million-dollar North Rail project. [Photos by Alecks P. Pabico]

IMAGINE uprooting 40,000 families — twice the entire population of the municipality of San Juan, Metro Manila — and relocating them elsewhere.

By any stretch of the imagination, this would be a logistical and sociological nightmare. The financial cost alone would also be staggering. This is exactly what is happening in the government program to relocate those who will be displaced by the North Rail Project. The Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) estimates that the government needs to shell out at least P6.6 billion in resettlement costs, but it is not clear where this money is going to come from.

The Senate began last week hearings on the controversial North Rail project, which envisions the rehabilitation of the north line of the old Philippine National Railways (PNR). So far the hearings have focused on the allegedly onerous and illegal provisions of the North Rail contract, inked by the government with a Chinese company.

Little attention has been given to the fact that rebuilding and extending the 80-kilometer railway, a project intended to spur economic growth in Central and Northern Luzon, also means evicting more than 200,000 poor people who live alongside the railroad tracks. This would make it the biggest — and costliest — resettlement project ever undertaken by the Philippine government.

Critics say that the North Rail contract, which costs $503 million or roughly P28 billion at the current exchange rate, is overpriced. More than 80 percent of this will be funded by a loan from the Export-Import Bank of China.

But this price tag does not include the cost of relocation, which will be borne by the Philippine government through the National Housing Authority (NHA) and by the families who will be evicted. A former railway official said that the resettlement expenses were deliberately hidden so these would not reflect on the overall, already bloated, project cost.

In 2004, President Arroyo signed Administrative Order 111, which designated the NHA as the lead agency for implementing the rail-related resettlement program. The problem, however, is that the NHA does not have that kind of money.

In March, NHA General Manager Federico Laxa said in a public hearing conducted by the joint Senate committees on finance, local government, and urban planning, housing and resettlement, that his agency has only P1.6 billion for the North Rail relocation and resettlement program.

In addition, it got an interest-free loan of P100 million from the North Luzon Railways Corporation (NLRC), the government corporation that will construct, operate and maintain the North Rail. Future funds will be "bridge financed" from a loan to the NHA from the National Development Company which will be paid from NHA's annual appropriations from the government budget.

Laxa rued the fact that the relocation component was not inputted into the project cost. Former NLRC chief operating officer, Rene Santiago, an international transport consultant, said the resettlement expenses were deliberately hidden.

"Hindi yan nakalimutan. Intentionally itinago, (These were not forgotten, they were intentionally kept secret)" Santiago said. "Now they are forcing NHA to budget it from their appropriations so it will bring down North Rail's cost, to make it appear that the project cost is low."

Apart from financing difficulties, the North Rail relocation program is beset by the same problems that have hounded government relocation projects elsewhere: corruption, inefficiency, the lack of a comprehensive relocation program, and a general disregard for the views and the needs of the poor people who are facing eviction.

Unfinished houses are a common sight in Towerville as relocatees, uprooted from their livelihood sources, have taken to selling the alloted construction materials to feed their hungry families.

The government has not undertaken a resettlement project on this scale since it attempted in the 1970s, at the height of martial law, to uproot 180,000 people from the politically volatile Tondo Foreshore slum in order to build a new international container port. Because of protests from the slumdwellers, who were supported by Catholic and Protestant clergy, the Marcos government backed down and allowed most of the residents to stay either in the area or nearby, instead of being relocated to a site 40 to 45 kilometers away.

Affected families and NGO workers interviewed for this report say that the North Rail relocation is plagued by the absence of a comprehensive relocation action plan and a lack of transparency on the part of project authorities. They say information is provided to the affected families only on a piecemeal and need-to-know basis.

The families are also being herded to resettlement sites that lack basic facilities such as water supply, electricity, drainage and sewage systems, and health centers and schools. They are uprooted from their sources of income without the alternate jobs being provided.

For this reason, the relocated families have found it difficult to pay for the high monthly amortization of their lots in the resettlement sites, which cost between P100,000 and P125,000, payable within 25-30 years at a six-percent interest.

In not a few cases, evicted families moved out of their relocation sites to settle elsewhere in search of jobs, even as many have now taken to selling the construction materials allotted to them to build their houses just to feed their hungry families. Children have also been getting sick especially with the onset of the rainy season.

So far, 7,297 families from Metro Manila and 1,401 families from Bulacan have already been relocated. It is expected that the clearing of Bulacan up to Malolos of some 11,477 families will be completed before the end of October.

All these families are affected by the first section of Phase I of the Project — the construction of the 32-kilometer double-track, narrow-gauge rail line from Caloocan to Malolos. Another 20,000 families in Pampanga will have to be relocated when the construction of the line to the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport inside the Clark Special Economic Zone gets underway.

Vice President Noli de Castro, on whom the heavy burden of the North Rail relocation has been assigned by virtue of his being HUDCC chair, is confident the project is on track. De Castro's masa appeal has helped made it easier for the Arroyo administration to evict the railway squatters with minimal protests.

Towerville relocatees say life at the resettlement has become even more miserable that you can't find someone from whom you can borrow even only five pesos.

The North Rail is a major component of the Strong Republic Transport System, the flagship infrastructure project of the Arroyo administration. The big-ticket venture is envisioned to provide a fast and reliable mass transport service for passengers and goods between Metro Manila and Central and Northern Luzon in order to spur the growth and development of these areas.

To ensure habitable and adequate relocation sites, de Castro said he personally visits the resettlement sites "almost every week to monitor the progress and to make sure that the well-being of the families is being looked after."

But it seems de Castro has been making promises the NHA cannot fulfill.

Today, NGOs working in the relocation sites say that all the resettled families are appealing for are jobs and livelihood assistance. "May pabahay nga kami rito, wala naman kaming hanapbuhay? Paano kami mabuhay? (It's true we have houses here, but what good are these if we don't have jobs? How do we survive?)" asks Nelina Rendora, 43, a mother of four who has chosen to be relocated at the Towerville resettlement site in San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan.

In addition, unscrupulous private individuals and public officials have been milking the relocation for every opportunity to engage in corruption. Residents say kickbacks and payoffs are extracted at almost every stage of the resettlement project. They point to the purchase by the NHA of overvalued real estate used for the relocation sites. This, they say, allowed well-connected property owners to make a killing with the connivance of NHA bureaucrats.

Evicted families say they have also been forced to use the assistance money they had been provided to buy overpriced construction materials from suppliers favored by the NHA. In addition, contractors and land developers in the good graces of local government officials have been awarded fat contracts to develop relocation sites. — with additional reporting by Luz Rimban


Part Two
Thousands of Evicted Families Go Hungry In Relocation Sites
by ALECKS P. PABICO


Nazaria Castillo keeps some of her Towerville neighbors — hungry mothers and children — from starving by feeding them lunch for free at her carinderia. [Photos by Alecks P. Pabico]

TOWERVILLE, San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan — Every day, around lunch time, hungry mothers and children hang around Nazaria Castillo's carinderia in the hope of getting food. Castillo knows they have no money, and so she herds them inside her store and feeds them whatever humble meal she is selling that day.

"Even if I'm short of cash myself and I hardly make any profit, I feed them," said the 72-year-old grandmother. "My conscience won't allow me to let them go hungry."

For sure, the life by the railway tracks that Castillo, her daughters and four grandchildren left behind was miserable and unsafe. Until last year, they all lived in a cramped shanty built precariously alongside the railroad in Malabon. Beginning January, they moved, along with more than 400 other families, to the Towerville resettlement site in the hinterlands of Bulacan.

But for Castillo and her neighbors, life has become even worse. They all transferred here of their own accord, lured by promises of lots where they could build their houses and that they would one day own. They did get their lots, but these were in the middle of a hilly nowhere. Residents have to shell out P35 for a tricycle ride in and out of Towerville and need to have at least P150 for transport fare to and from Manila, where most of them have jobs.

With no money and no income, residents are stuck here, facing the specter of starvation. This was not quite what they had been promised.

The National Housing Authority (NHA) boasts of the achievements of its North Rail relocation program, which is intended to resettle 40,000 railway families to rebuild the 80-kilometer railroad from Manila to Clark. But evicted families and NGOs working with them say that the government resettlement program is beset with corruption and is bogged down by disputes among local officials, residents and the NHA.

The public face of the resettlement project is Vice President Noli de Castro, who also chairs the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC). De Castro's wide popularity has made it possible to evict families with minimal resistance. But it has been unable to stop housing officials and well-placed contractors and developers from milking money from the resettlement projects.

"If only Noli de Castro can hear how the officials boast about moving people here," said Castillo. "He should know that people have been thrown here without being told how bad the conditions are going to be."

To be sure, the railway squatters knew they would one day be evicted from the tracks, which until recently teemed with shanties where thousands lived despite the hazards. Offered relocation, which they saw as an opportunity for a better life away from the harsh living conditions along the riles, the squatter families welcomed the government's offer of a life elsewhere.

The families who moved to Towerville were provided by the NHA with an interest-free loan of P50,000 so they could construct their own houses. The amount covers expenses on construction material (P40,000) and labor (P10,000). A P1,000-food subsidy was also provided.

Though generous by the standards of previous assistance packages, the beneficiaries also had to purchase from their loans construction materials that were overpriced and of inferior quality. For instance, they were forced to buy four-inch concrete hollow blocks at P5.80 each, even when these could be purchased at the local hardware for only P4. A bag of cement was pegged at P158 when it should cost only around P140.

Because of the overprice, the P40,000 could not pay for a decent house, said Nelina Rendora, a Towerville resident. "We had to use up our savings to complete the houses. And now we don't even have money for food."

Still, the Towerville families can count themselves luckier than others. They have each been given 50-square-meter lots for a price of P125,000, payable in 25 years. Those in other relocation sites such as in Bignay in Valenzuela and Lambakin in Marilao are getting 32-square meter lots for P100,000, payable within the same period.

The families are saying that this is better than the cardboard thatches they used to live in, and for this, many are grateful.

To their credit, local government units of the affected areas are beginning to learn that relocation to a remote site does not work since it merely transfers the problem to another place. That is why the Bulacan government has opted to resettle evicted families in or near the same city or town they used to live in.

But disputes still abound. In Marilao, railway dwellers are being forced to move to the nine-hectare Lambakin relocation site even though most of them prefer another site in Bgy. Loma de Gato which already met NHA standards.

Marilao Mayor Epifanio Guillermo, however, prefers they move to Lambakin. NHA's Laxa is of the same mind, despite the fact that parts of that site are the subject of an unresolved land dispute.

This has only fanned suspicions that the two are favoring a developer linked to Laxa's actor cousin, Tony Ferrer (Antonio Laxa in real life), and Azor Sitchon, a losing mayoralty bet in San Simon, Pampanga. Laxa, a real-estate developer himself, was once mayor of Macabebe, Pampanga.

Sitchon has admitted in a newspaper report to acting as a "consultant" to D' Grand Builders and Contractors Inc. which got the contract to develop the Lambakin site. The real-estate company was registered only in May. One of its incorporators, Teodora Dalisay, and her husband Domingo are known political supporters of Sitchon.

In Canumay, Valenzuela, about 200 families from Malabon have been enduring heat and rain in makeshift tents for the past seven months. They have not been able to build their houses after Mayor Sherwin Gatchalian refused to give a permit to develop the site, on the grounds that it does not conform to the city's zoning laws.

Aside from contractors with known Pampanga-connections, the NHA has also brought in controversial New San Jose Builders (NSJB) to develop resettlement sites in Bulacan. Goldenville Realty and Development Corporation, said to be similarly owned by Jose Acuzar, chairman of the board of NSJB, has also cornered two other resettlement contracts.

A favored contractor during the presidency of Joseph Estrada, the New San Jose Builders was involved in renovating Estrada's "Boracay" mansion and was the main developer of the P2.8-billion Erap City, the mass-housing project of the Estrada administration. The developer is known to maintain close relations with every administration with its ability to find people with close connections to the government. Acuzar, construction industry sources say, is close to de Castro.

There have also been reported cases of grossly overvalued lands bought by the NHA for the resettlement sites. One such case involves a certain Flordeliza Uy who sold to the NHA a 7.6-hectare lot in Bignay, Valenzuela at P2,000 per square meter, or a staggering P140 million, in an area where the zonal value of property is only P1,100 to P1,500 per square meter. The land title shows that Uy's company had bought the property from the Bank of the Philippine Islands in August 2004 for only P30 million.

The lot was still mortgaged and titled with the bank when the NHA board of directors approved its purchase upon the recommendation of Froilan Kampitan of the agency's National Capital Region management office.

Kampitan was reportedly involved in another overpriced land deal with the Achievers Farm comprising several lots in Libtong, Meycauayan, Bulacan. One of the lots was bought by the NHA at P40 million, although it was sold to Achievers Farm recently for only P4 million.

Yet another ambitious resettlement project in Norzagaray, this time jointly entered into by the North Luzon Railways Corp., the provincial government of Bulacan and a private contractor, the Alto Projekt Asia Inc. (APAI), has not been able to deliver 10,000 homelots for North Rail-affected families.

That property was donated by the NLRC to the Bulacan Housing and Agro-Industrial (BUHAI) project. The project, of which P118 million had already been paid by the NLRC, was supposed to develop and subdivide10 hectares of property into 813 lots. But as it appears now, the costly BUHAI project, which has so far only built 57 housing units, will likely not be utilized since an in-city/town relocation was adopted in Bulacan. — with additional reporting by Luz Rimban



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