Thesis Statement:

Awarding private lands to informal settlers is not a sustainable

solution to the rising problem of urban squatting as it impedes on
the rights of private land owners.

Overview
An archipelago which consists of 7,107 islands, the Philippines is home to over
97 million Filipinos according the recent statistics provided by the Commission on
Population1. With over 30 million hectares, one would think that the country has enough
space for its people but this is a skewed view as there is a rising problem of proper land
distribution, unbalanced density of populations, and natural disasters.
Currently, there is a swelling in the urban population of the Philippines as many
of the rural dwellers are blinded by the Manila dream a dream where they think they
would be able to hit it big in the big city that is Manila only to end up as part of the
informal settlers riddling the various vacant lots of the metro. The causes of which have
no end but one must be able to see the gravitas of the root cause which is land reform and
proper allocation of land resources.
First, consider the problems of the rural people, most of them remain landless as
they fall victim to natural disasters that erode lands making them uninhabitable. In
addition, despite the various land reforms purported by our government, majority of these
fertile and habitable lands are redistributed to wealthy private landowners who merely
lease the lands to these rural dwellers making them, technically, landless and thus

Projected Population as of May 6, 2013, PH: Commission on Population, May 6, 2013

pushing them to pursue the great Manila Dream contributing to the already dense
population in the city.
Inadvertently, the lack of access to agricultural land along with natural resources
to the majority of these rural dwellers, which comprise the majority of our population, is
the key cause of poverty in our country and has turned itself into a major speed-bump to
natural growth and development.
The above is actually a conundrum to what the Philippines actually has to offer.
Our country is rich with natural resources, a land diverse with flora and fauna, and yet
most of our resources are controlled by only handful of big name companies who
monopolize profits to further expand into and exploit our natural resources leaving
nothing for the small communities.
In the end, as the population in the provinces dwindle; the population in the urban
areas continues to rise. Informal settlers have become a major problem in our society and
most solutions being presented by both the local and national government do not have
even a semblance of sustainability, at least for the long run. These solutions include
awarding lands to these urban poor and dole out to help them get back on their feet, an
enabling solution to a cyclical problem.