DAVAO CITY— “All Filipino families in North Cotabato must be provided with their own houses.”
This was declared by Atty. Ronaldo B. Saco, Vice President for Operations of the Social Housing Foundation (SHDFC) after the recent orientation forum held in Kidapawan City before the homeless families in the province.
Meanwhile, the provincial government is also pushing for “murang pabahay project” to qualified residents in Kidapawan City particularly the informal settlers who were victims of recent earthquakes.
Based on SHFC guidelines, the priority in the housing project are families that have long been renting their houses, those without houses, those living in danger zones, workers with salaries below P10,000 per month and those affected by road widening projects.
In the forum attended by 89 participants from different municipalities of North Cotabato, Saco, however, said the families should apply in groups, not individually.
The gathering held last March 11 was intended to give technical knowledge to those who want to avail of SHDFC’s Pabahay Program. Applicants will undergo thorough verification that will be conducted by Local Government Units concerned before approval.
The provincial government will field its technical working group to help applicants process the needed documents. After Saco’s call on Catamco last March 16, the governor expressed her desire to start the housing project the soonest.
Earlier, Catamco issued Executive Order organizing the technical working group for the said housing project.
According to Basilio E. Obello, vice chair of the technical working group, the province’s immediate goal is to provide homes to the homeless residents by 2018.
Obello added that until now, a lot of Cotabateño could still not own houses because of high amortization in housing loans and the complicated process in the needed documents. So far, about 3,534 homeless and 1,288 walk-in applicants from different municipalities have been given orientation.-PIO/NCOT
