Demolition blues

If it were a simple case of casting blame for the deadly battle that erupted last April 23 between some 1,500 residents of the Silverio Compound in Parañaque City and about 300 policemen who were tasked to enforce a court-ordered demolition of dozens of stalls maintained by the residents at a flea market in the compound, then the live TV coverage of the incident provides easy categorizations.

Rocks, molotov cocktails, pillboxes and bags of human waste began flying from the side of the residents toward the ranks of policemen at around 10 a.m., even as community organizers were said to be still in the middle of negotiations with a court sheriff and government officials led by Rep. Edwin Olivares. TV footage showed police ranks still in formation coming under a heavy barrage of the makeshift artillery, before all hell broke loose when the cops charged at the crowd with their truncheons, tear gas canisters and, apparently, guns (a member of the city’s SWAT team was caught on camera aiming his firearm directly at the scampering residents). When the smoke cleared, a young man lay dead on the street with a gunshot wound in his head. Thirty-nine other people, including four policemen, were injured. Health workers claimed to have assisted a number of residents, including two minors, in seeking treatment for gunshot wounds.

Could the clash have been avoided had the protesters and their organizers not goaded the police? That’s one way of looking at it. The Southern Police District spokesperson, Supt. Jenny Tecson, said it was militant groups that instigated the violence by breaking ranks, hurling projectiles, and even attempting to burn police cars and fire trucks—a charge denied by Shiela Bernal, a community leader in the area, who said they were forced to fight back only when the police opened fire on the protesters. But if activists did help escalate the confrontation by stoking instead of dousing the proverbial fire, it must be asked: What is their accountability?

Another way of looking at it is to ask why the volatile situation had been allowed to reach breaking point, in the first place. Both Parañaque Mayor Florencio Bernabe Jr. and Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo have clarified that only the market stalls clogging the road leading into the compound, and not the residents’ houses, were to be demolished for now. But how was this distinction communicated to the residents? Was it explained to them at all, along with any clear, feasible plans that the city government might have for their relocation, should the demolition of homes in the rest of the government-owned property finally push through?

Bernabe also denied reports that tycoon Henry Sy’s property firm was preparing to build a high-rise on the land, hence the need to clear it of informal settlers. Instead, Bernabe said, “we have a housing program there with the National Housing Authority to build medium-rise buildings in that location, which is also for [the residents]. They … will be relocated to a different area on the lot while the apartments are being built.”

Sounds reasonable—but did the compound’s dwellers actually understand, or even hear, these words? Was a dialogue ever held in which the city government made clear to the 25,000-strong members of this community that it wasn’t true they were being thrown out of the homes they had known for years, perhaps even decades, to make way for a high-rise that could only mock their lifelong impoverishment?

The Constitution itself says: “Urban or rural poor dwellers shall not be evicted nor their dwellings demolished, except in accordance with law and in a just and humane manner. No resettlement of urban or rural dwellers shall be undertaken without adequate consultation with them and the communities where they are to be relocated.”

Did Bernabe conduct any consultation, adequate or otherwise, with his constituents to gain their approval on his planned housing project for them before he sent the cops over, which naturally spooked them into a frenzy? And is there no punishment for police brutality (as displayed in TV footage of cops gleefully beating protesters already apprehended)?

The issue of informal settlers, as should be clear by now, will not be resolved by demolitions, forced evictions and mass arrests—not when an estimated fourth of Metro Manila’s population is classified as “squatters.” This is a massive problem that needs humane, systemic solutions. Without these, the tragedy at the Silverio Compound will only replicate itself, in bigger and bloodier ways.