The scheduled demolition today in East Bank Manggahan Floodway did not push through after the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) raised concerns with the Pasig local government unit (LGU) and Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) that the terms in their memorandum of agreement has not been complied due to at least 10 pending applications for relocation with the National Housing Authority (NHA).
The residents united under Balikwas Kadamay still gathered at Purok 4 to prepare against the demolition threat.
They trooped to the MMDA office yesterday morning to inquire on a scheduled demolition in Manggahan Floodway today, which the agency confirmed. The Pasig LGU requested for 500 demolition personnel from the MMDA for a tentative demolition date on September 21 that the MMDA acquiesced for September 26. The Pasig LGU said residents refused financial assistance and relocation and stands in the way of their flood control project in the area that they have labelled as a danger zone. The PCUP letter was sent yesterday afternoon and may have altered the course of events, at least temporarily.
The residents were blamed for traffic in the area on August 31 when they set up a barricade against the impending demolition that also did not push through. There were 41 arrested in a violent police dispersal of the barricade, including 10 minors. They were able to post bail after the city prosecutor released the resolution on their charges nine days into their detention.
Balikwas Kadamay Chair Rodrigo Villareal said of suspended demolition attempts, “it was because the residents are resisting the demolition that is why the government did not push through with the demolition. But greed has no bounds.”
Residents did not go to work or school to defy attempts of the forcible destruction of their homes.
Gabriela Women’s Partylist Rep. Arlene Brosas proceeded to Manggahan Floodway today to meet with the residents. She went to the National Housing Authority (NHA) housing along East Bank Road, just across the street from the community, to inspect the low-rise buildings. Members of Balikwas Kadamay protest the substandard quality of housing units in the relocation site, apart from that they are insufficient in number for all affected by the demolition.
Brosas, a member of the House of Representatives’ Commitee on Housing and Urban Development, was not allowed to go inside the low-rise building complex in Floodway, Pasig.
The residents, however, were able to get hold of a block of the wall of the housing unit. It was made with Styrofoam with a cement finish.
The said relocation site started construction in 2012, but only three of 13 buildings are constructed.
In 2012, the Department of Public Works and Highways said that the agency’s flood control project in Manggahan Floodway would displace 84,928 individuals.
