QC needs to address its squatter problem

Neal Cruz failed to offer any solution to the country’s biggest squatter problem in his Oct. 14, 2011 column.

Whether we like it or not, Quezon City will have to build housing communities where the city’s informal settlers can resettle. And this is no easy task for the Quezon City government, considering that our city has the biggest informal settler population in the country. The latest count is more than 232,000 families.

This means more families to resettle and more funds for pro-poor housing programs. That is why the Quezon City government has begun implementing two revenue measures mandated by the Urban Development and Housing Act way back in 1992: the idle land tax and the socialized housing tax. No city, no matter how rich, can build housing communities without making sure that it will also have enough funds for other pro-people programs.

The idle land tax is raising revenues for the city’s socialized housing projects, while encouraging our landowners to make their lands productive.

On the socialized housing tax (SHT), the city council considered the views of homeowners in public hearings—the approved ordinance is good for five years, from the original 10, and raised the tax-exempt assessment threshold to P100,000 from P50,000. Based on the computation of the Quezon City Information Technology Department, those affected by the SHT will only be 26 percent of the city’s real property taxpayers. The SHT also provides a tax credit benefit for those who pay the tax faithfully for the entire five-year effectivity period.

The SHT has a five-year life span because the city government expects that, after a five-year period, the socialized housing program will be able to finance itself out of the takeout mechanisms of the Pag-Ibig Fund and from the amortization payments of the beneficiaries. This is the reason that no housing unit under the Quezon City housing program is free. Beneficiaries must pay back consistently and faithfully so that the money can be rolled over and used to finance more housing units.

We hope that this will enlighten Quezon City taxpayers, including Cruz, on the city’s efforts to resettle poor families in safe places away from danger zones.

—GREGORIO T. BAÑACIA,

head, Public Affairs and Information

Services Office, Quezon City Hall