Eutemia B. Ontina
2. History and facts of the North Triangle Area
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Agreement (JVA) it had entered into in year 2009 with Ayala Land, Inc. (ALI), a prime CBD developer in the country. The Joint Venture Project shall endeavor to develop the 29.1829-hectare property into mixed land use, starting with ‘priming residential’
development using an average Floor Area Ratio of 8. Integrated into it is an off-site relocation program package of the 8,968 informal settler families that is estimated to cost not less than Php1.824 Billion.
The Joint Venture Project between the NHA and ALI has been intended to jumpstart the development of the QC-CBD.
In effect, it shall become the forefront for changes in the landscape north of Metro Manila. Such a change in the landscape shall bring in new concepts of urban renewal of prime land that had long been underutilized and a cause of social issues arising from informal occupancy and spurious claim of ownership from private individuals. The proposed development in North Triangle is also envisioned to generate housing to bring more people closer to their jobs (World Bank, 2006), spur the economy to a greater height, and increase the financial strength
and viability of the City government for the improvement and delivery of better programs to its constituents through increased tax collections, permits and licenses. Likewise, the NHA has envisioned from this new Joint Venture Project the generation of the much needed revenues to sustain the socialized housing program of the Philippine government as mandated under Executive Order No.
620, series of 2007.
2. History and facts of the
115 481, has an equivalent area of over 50
hectares. However, the area equivalent to 7 hectares thereof was reserved for the Manila Seedling Bank Foundation (MSBF) with the issuance of Proclamation No.
1670, series of 1977, by former President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Another 16-hectare area was further declared for use as a depot of the Metro Rail Transport System when the National Housing Authority (NHA) entered into a Contract of Lease in 1998 with the Department of Transportation and Communications, as approved by the Office of the President. Two more parcels of land were sold to the Bureau of Fire Protection and the Department of Labor and Employment in the 1980s, thereby leaving a residual area of 29.1829 hectares that have remained underutilized and underdeveloped over the years. Said site has always been the object of informal occupancy over the
decades. This informal occupancy issue was a deterrent to fully enforcing the 1996 Contract of Lease, which NHA entered into with New San Jose Builders (NSJBI), a private real estate developer in the country, to allow commercial development of the site. When NSJBI took physical possession in 2005 of the cleared portion of the site, which came out as 8.4 hectares in the relocation survey, for the interim use thereof, that did not solve the squatting problem, as the informal settlers were trying to cram themselves into small land spaces for shelter with what remained of the livable area for them.
In hindsight, in November 1987, former President Corazon C. Aquino issued Memorandum Order No. 127, declaring that the undisposed of portion of the 60-hectare area in North Triangle, which was declared as part of the 120-hectare NGC site by virtue of Proclamation No. 481, should be Figure 8_ Designated site for NGC but later reclassified into a commercial area, and the location of
the 29.1829-hectare NHA-ALI JV Project
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converted into a commercial area. For the best interests of the government, the NHA, as administrator of the land, was further authorized by the President to sell the same to the private sector through public bidding.
With the issuance of this Presidential directive, the 29.1829-hectare property in North Triangle was then reclassified as a commercial area, despite the continuous influx of informal settlers.
2.2 Land ownership
The National Housing Authority (NHA) gained rights as owner and administrator of both the NGC site in North Triangle and the adjoining parcels of land when it was created in 1975 by virtue of Presidential Decree No.
757, thereby abolishing the predecessor government agency, Philippine Homesite and Housing Corporation (PHHC), and
transferring to it the latter’s landholdings. The PHHC was the registered owner of the formerly known Diliman Estate containing an area of 1,572.32 hectares, as covered by Torrens Certificate of Title (TCT) No. 1356 issued by the Registry of Deeds of the Province of Rizal in 1939, when the Quezon City territory was still in its political and geographical jurisdiction. The entire North Triangle Area, as well as the two other sites being identified as part of the proposed QC-CBD, namely, the East Triangle and the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) site, likewise were declared part of the Diliman Estate. The residual area of the 29.1829 hectares in the North Triangle is a consolidation of portions of the lots covered by three individual titles now registered under the name of the NHA with TCT No. 1356 as its derivative title. Consistent with the requirement in the Joint Venture Agreement
Figure 9_ Configuration of the Diliman Estate and the location of the NHA – ALI JV Project
117 with ALI, the NHA is compliant in putting into
effect the approval of the revised subdivision plan by the Land Management Bureau, an attached agency of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
2.3 Informal occupancy in North Triangle
Rapid urbanization, poverty, unequal distribution of resources and wealth, scarcity of employment opportunities in the provinces, misconstrued notions of democracy, and lack of political will may be attributed as the common causes of squatting or the formation of squatter colonies, mostly in government-owned lands in Metro Manila and in other urban areas across the country. Over the decades, the North Triangle property became a typical, government-owned land that has become laden with social issues related to squatting and spurious claims of ownership from private citizens. Claims from private individuals are encumbrances that are annotated in the land titles, and clearances from these encumbrances are part of NHA’s compliance with the Joint Venture arrangement it entered into with ALI.
Appropriate legal actions are being undertaken to clear the NHA from these encumbrances, with the support of the Office of the Solicitor General.
The issue on informal occupancy in North Triangle and the site where VMMC is presently situated is proven to exist prior to 1952. Ramon Magsaysay (1952), then
acting as Secretary of the National Defense before he became President of the Republic of the Philippines, cited in his letter to the General Manager of the Philippine Homesite and Housing Corporation that the problem of squatters within the proposed VMMC site is also true of lands within the vicinity that belong to the latter. He further cited that the squatters within the vicinity were laborers who opted to stay near construction sites, and he speculated that the construction of the Veterans Memorial Hospital (now known as Veterans Memorial Medical Center) will aggravate squatting within the surrounding area. The 29.1829-hectare North Triangle property is located across the VMMC site.
In 1983, the attempt by the NHA to secure a large portion of North Triangle from informal occupancy was short-lived, as thereafter more shanties were continuously built inside the area. It was also during this year that Shoemart Development Corporation started to construct its first and largest Mall in Metro Manila across North Triangle. This attracted another wave of entrants to the site.
Like many government-owned lands, the North Triangle property was not spared from the intrusion of a massive number of informal settlers as an aftermath of the Peoples’
Power Revolution that occurred in February 1986, when former President Marcos was deposed and replaced by the late President Corazon C. Aquino, who was instrumental in restoring the country’s democracy. That act of intrusion on a government-owned land was a manifestation of a wrong notion about
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exercising democracy. It was obviously a deviation from the proper exercise of freedom that the Filipinos fought for during the Peoples’ Power Revolution and it therefore violated the private rights inherent to the NHA as owner-administrator of the property.
A total of 8,968 informal settler families were known to have settled within the 29.1829-hectare North Triangle property during the tagging and census validation survey conducted in the first quarter of 2009.
Seven thousand, three hundred eighty-eight (7,388), or 82.38% of the informal settler families were counted in the in the 1996 census. The remaining 17.62%, or 1,580, informal settler families were entrants to North Triangle after the 1996 census survey. If Republic Act No. 7279, otherwise known as the “Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992,” and its implementing guidelines are strictly enforced, these informal occupants could only qualify for the entitlement of financial assistance under the ‘Balik Probinsya Program’ to help defray their travel expenses in returning to their respective home provinces or places of origin. Be that as it may, the current thrust in the Joint Venture partnership between the NHA and ALI is to relocate all of the informal settler
families in North Triangle by providing each of them a house and lot package in developed relocation sites in a place near Metro Manila to lessen the impact of the displacement.
The majority of the informal settlers comprise the following groups: 1) migrants from the provinces who were looking for employment or livelihood opportunities in the city; 2) renters and rent-free occupants who work in nearby malls, business establishments, and private companies in the Metropolis;
and 3) extended families from the marriage of children of the original informal setters.
The NHA’s past attempts to relocate the informal settlers off-site proved unsuccessful, as there was no funds in the government’s coffer to prioritize the cost of a clearing and relocation operation. The more aggravating circumstance was the continuous resistance of the informal settlers, who remained steadfast in their demand to stay status quo or an in-situ relocation while being shielded by different people’s organizations and alliances. Five Alliances continue to shelter 43 people’s organizations in North Triangle (Echevarria, 2010). Moreover, there are four Non-Governmental Associations (NGOs) that support the advocacies of these people’s organizations, even though a number of informal settler families had agreed to be relocated in Rodriguez, Rizal.
2.4 Urbanization in Manila and its expansion
The Philippines is an archipelagic state with a Particulars Numbers
Structure owners 3,329 Co-owners of structure 763
Renters 2,408
Sharers or rent-free occupants 875
Caretakers 13
Table 1_ Status of censused informal settler families in 1996
119 continuous concentration of trade and
commerce, education, and governance in Manila since the start of the Spanish colonization in the 16th century. Further colonization of the country by the Americans and the Japanese reinforced Manila as the stronghold of governance. After World War II, increasing numbers of migrants from the provinces started to flock to Manila in search of better opportunities. In the 1960s, squatting became a serious social issue in Manila and its surrounding urbanized areas, which included Quezon City.
However, housing needs in Manila existed even prior to the outbreak of World War II in1941. In 1938 when the Philippine population was estimated to have reached 16 million, the Philippine Commonwealth government created the Philippine Homesite Corporation (PHC), later known as the Philippine Homesite and Housing Corporation (PHHC), to institute a socialized housing program and address the housing needs in the urban centers. In Manila, the housing need was addressed when the government the purchase the 1,572.32-hectare Diliman Estate in the Province of Rizal to accommodate the overspill of its growing population. It was in this Estate that the then Commonwealth Government envisioned developing a “model city,”which has never been realized. Subdivision developments for low-income families were introduced within the Diliman Estate, with the exclusion of the North and East Triangle Subdivisions, the VMMC site, the Quezon City Memorial Circle
(QCMC), the site of Government institutions surrounding QCMC, and certain lots along East Avenue, where existing government hospitals and institutions are situated.
The North Triangle Subdivision has evolved into mixed land use, where, by virtue of Presidential Proclamations and directives since the 1950s, portions have been reserved for national parks, the National Government Center, and a commercial area.
2.5 Social preparation
Social preparation was an activity being undertaken to encourage the informal settler families to cooperate with the NHA’s plan to develop the site under a Joint Venture (JV) arrangement with Ayala Land, Inc. and to ensure that they shall accede peacefully when the clearing and relocation operation shall be implemented. Generally, the government’s strategy is to shape the minds, emotions and behavior of the informal settlers to ensure the least resistance upon implementation of the clearing and relocation operation. It engages, however, in a series of tedious discussions and continuing consultations among members of the Local Inter-Agency Committee (LIAC) created for this purpose.
The LIAC comprises representatives from the NHA, Quezon City Government, Human Rights Commission, Philippine Commission for the Urban Poor, Philippine National Police, Barangay Chairman, and of the various people’s organizations. Laying the
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groundwork for onsite social preparation is a task being undertaken by the assigned personnel of the NHA for community relations, assisted by the Barangay Chairman, and when necessary, by the Philippine National Police.
2.6 Census validation
A census validation was undertaken to count the total number of informal settler families within the 29.1829-hectare property in North Triangle. This is a procedure observed by the NHA whenever a prior census tagging and operation had previously been undertaken on the same site to determine the number of those who were earlier surveyed and to identify new entrants. Moreover, this procedure is observed in order to update the profile of informal settler families and to serve as an aid in strategizing for social preparation and to plan for the eventual clearing and relocation. The NHA has trained its personnel specifically to perform this kind of task in informally occupied lands.
2.7 Clearing and relocation
Relocation operations started, however, in September 23, 2010 with violence and strong resistance from the informal settlers, which caused long hours of <stalled?>
vehicular traffic along the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA). The informal settler families were earlier served with demolition notices as part of due diligence and so as
not to cause violation of human rights. In support to the informal settler family-relocatee, each is granted a reasonable amount of financial assistance in view of the displacement, to enable them to start anew in the relocation site. The relocation
Figure 10_ Vicinity Map of Quezon City and the Relocation/Resettlement Sites of the North Triangle infor-mal settler families
Figure 12_ Location plan and photo documen-tation of the Resettlement Sites Figure 11_ Subdivision Plan of the
Resettle-ment Sites with a total of 6,861 Housing Units (HUs) generated
121 operation is still ongoing. As of March 11,
2011, there are 4,697 informal settler families from North Triangle who are already relocated to Rodriguez, Rizal (Castro, 2011).
2.8 Commitment of NHA over the land prior to the joint venture with Ayala Land, Inc.
The 29.1829-hectare property forms part of the 37-hectare land size in North Triangle, which was covered by a 1996 Contract of Lease with the New San Jose Builders (NSJB), a property developer in the country, and Robinsons Corporation. The latter, however, relinquished its leasehold right and executed a Deed of Assignment of Leasehold Right in favor of the NSJB at a consideration of Php25 million. Thenceforth, the NSJB became the sole lessee of the 37-hectare property, which is inclusive of the approximately 7-hectare area being allocated to the Manila Seedling Bank Foundation by virtue of Proclamation No. 1670, series of 1977. Among the conditions stipulated to enforce the 50-year Contract of Lease was the NHA’s compliance with delivering at least a 50% cleared area that must be contiguous, while the NSJBI had to comply with the submission of a Certificate of Environmental Compliance from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Both parties were unable to comply with such conditions. The NHA, however, allowed the NSJB to take physical possession of an area equivalent to 10
hectares for use as a Central Bus Terminal under a 10-year interim lease arrangement, which was embodied in a Memorandum of Agreement while it shall address the requirement of relocating the informal settlers. The NSJB was able to take actual physical possession of only 8.4 hectares because of the presence of informal occupants. The NHA, however, was constrained with funds to proceed with the clearing and relocation operation, which was estimated to cost about to Php2 billion. On the other hand, the resistance of the informal settlers continued to pose a threat and remained a challenge to the NHA.
While the NHA and the NSJB remained unable to pursue implementation of the original Contract of Lease, the number of informal occupants had further escalated, thereby aggravating the squalid condition and problem of congestion in North Triangle.
The NHA, which relies on its corporate receipts to pursue its operations, continued to face the dilemma of being unable to transform the property into a commercially viable property that could help generate the much needed revenue to sustain the government’s socialized housing program.
Also at this time, the North Triangle Development Commercial Corporation (NTDCC) of the Ayala Group of Companies was allowed by the Department of Transportation and Communications to utilize the air space and underutilized areas of the 16-hectare area that it leased from the NHA for the establishment of Trinoma Mall.
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Thus, with the start of the Trinoma’s operation in the year 2007, the adjoining 29.1829-hectare North Triangle property became ripe for commercial development.
Sensitive to the plans of the government, the people’s organizations strengthened their alliance to demand from the government an in situ medium-rise resettlement where they can permanently reside.
The NSJB had therefore agreed to relinquish the Contract of Lease it had entered into with the NHA, subject to the condition that it be compensated for its leasehold rights by the new developer, which the latter shall identify based on a selection process that will pass through public bidding as required by existing laws.
In March 2006, the NHA Board of Directors approved the development and sale of the North Triangle property, then with an estimated area of 30 hectares based on a schematic plan, through a Joint Venture (JV) arrangement. Thereafter, the NHA advertised the solicitation of proposals from prospective JV partners through the NHA Bids and Awards Committee, consistent with existing laws and regulations.
Following the mandates in the selection process and the implementation of the 2008 Joint Venture Guidelines of the National Economic Development Authority, the NHA Board of Directors had approved on July 2009 the development of the 29.1829-hectare North Triangle property, which area was determined through a relocation survey, under a Joint Venture arrangement with ALI,
a premier property developer of Central Business Districts in the Philippines.
The NHA, however, was ordered by the Supreme Court of the Philippines in 2006 to respect the usufructuary right of Manila Seedling Bank Foundation, Inc. over the 7-hectare area it occupied, which formed part of the 37-hectares that was leased to the NSJB.