MAY 29, 2015

NR # 3846

House passes On-Site, In-City, Near-City Resettlement Act

The House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading a measure
establishing an on-site, in-city or near-city resettlement program for informal settler
families (ISFs).
House Bill 5144, to be known as the On-site, In-City, Near-City Resettlement
Act, aims to upgrade informal settlements from areas of abject poverty, social exclusion,
unsafe housing, and underdevelopment into communities with enhanced physical living
conditions and improved quality of life and which are fully integrated into a citys or an
urban areas physical and socioeconomic fabric and urban governance system.
The bill amends Republic Act 7279, as amended, otherwise known as the Urban
Development and House Act of 1992.
Rep. Alfredo B. Benitez (3rd District, Negros Occidental), Chairman of the House
Committee on Housing and Urban Development, expressed his gratitude to his colleagues
for supporting the bill.
The bill defines in-city resettlement as a relocation site within the jurisdiction of
the city where the affected ISFs are living while near-city refers to a relocation site in a
city other than the city of the affected informal settlements, adjacent to the present
settlements of the affected ISFs.
Under the measure, the ISFs shall be empowered by making them active partners of
government in the planning and management of their own resettlement with specific focus
on their housing needs and aspirations.
The measure ensures the sustainability and viability of resettlement projects for
ISFs by assuring access to services and employment opportunities in case on-site
resettlement cannot be undertaken.
The bill provides for the formation of the affected ISFs into a beneficiary
association that will formulate a Peoples Plan through a process of an adequate and
genuine consultation in coordination with the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor
(PCUP).
The ISF association is authorized by the measure to develop and implement the
Peoples Plan which shall include a Relocation Action Plan with the assistance of civil
society organizations and concerned government agencies.
Peoples plan refers to the plan formulated by the beneficiary-association in

coordination with the PCUP with or without the support of civil society organizations.
The plan shall contain a site development plan, including non-physical development
components such as self-help housing cooperative, livelihood, self-help development, and
capability building.
The local government unit (LGU) is mandated to implement the relocation and the
government agencies involved in the provision of basic services and facilities to provide
through a memorandum of agreement that the recipient LGU where the resettlement site is
located.
The Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDC) and the
Department of Finance, Bureau of Local Government Finance shall formulate the
implementing rules and regulations on the cost-sharing mechanism necessary to fully
implement the provision of such other basic services and facilities.
In addition, the allocation for the basic services and facilities may be taken by the
local government unit implementing the relocation or resettlement from the twenty
percent of the internal revenue allotment appropriated for development projects as
mandated under Section 287 of RA7160, otherwise known as the Local Government
Code.
The HUDC and DILG, in consultation and coordination with appropriate
government agencies, civil society organizations, non-governmental organizations,
representatives from the private sector, and informal settler families, shall promulgate a
new set of implementing rules and regulations.
House Bill 5144 is a consolidation of House Bills 3195 and 3975, House Resolution
136, respectively of Reps. Luis Ferrer IV (6th District, Cavite) and Mar-Len Abigail Binay
(2nd District, Makati), Ibarra Gutierrez, III and Walden Bello (Party List, AKBAYAN),
Emmi De Jesus and Luzviminda Ilagan (Party List, GABRIELA), and Fernando Hicap
(Party List, ANAKPAWIS), and a Privilege Speech No. 15 on the Resettlement Program
for Informal Settler Families (ISFs), delivered by Rep. Ibarra Gutierrez, III. (30) jsc