“It feels like we’re going through the same ordeal we endured during Gloria’s time.”
Forced evictions are nothing new for some residents in impoverished communities in Muntinlupa City in the southern part of Metro Manila, especially those living near the Philippine National Railway (PNR) tracks.
In March, the PNR announced a suspension of operations to fast-track the implementation of the North-South Commuter Railway Project (NSCRP), a $5.36-billion mega railway project expected to be completed in 2027 and fully operational by 2029.
Since then, the threat of evictions – and loss of livelihood – has been hanging over the heads of the urban poor living near the tracks of PNR, whose route will be traversed by the railway project.
The 163-km long railway is designed to connect key cities in the metropolis to neighboring regions in the north and south. From Tutuban, Manila, the line runs north to Angeles City, Pampanga province, and south to Calamba town, Laguna province.
Funded jointly by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), it promises a 40-minute commute from Alabang in Muntinlupa to Clark International Airport in Angeles, Pampanga.
In less than 40 minutes too, the urban poor communities in Muntinlupa can be evicted and their homes demolished to make way for the project, acts that can entail harassment, red-tagging, and physical abuse.
“This project is as ambitious as it claims and they sure need to use violence against us just to drive us out of our homes,” said Christine Guevarra, not her real name, a resident of Brgy. Buli, Muntinlupa.
Caught between development and displacement
“It’s hard to accept that we can just be displaced because of a project we would not benefit from. We have been living here for a long time, as legitimate residents of Muntinlupa, yet it feels like we don’t matter to them,” said Guevarra.
The NSCRP is one of over 70 key projects under the “Build! Build! Build!” program of the previous Duterte administration. Of these 70 projects, 19 are intended for Mega Manila, including expressways, urban roads, railways, road-based public transport, and traffic management.
Nepomuceno Retardo, originally from Marinduque, has been living in his home near the PNR railroad tracks in Muntinlupa for more than three decades now. His wife’s sibling brought him to Manila hoping to find greener pastures and a more stable, comfortable life. However, those hopes never fully materialized.
“They cleared 15 meters from the railway before. Now they want an additional 1.94 meters. Almost every three days, someone’s measuring the area nonstop. I think Hyundai is doing the measurements, so the fences keep getting adjusted,” Retardo said.
According to him, the area has already been demolished and others were relocated to Biazon near the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa. Retardo was among those left behind.
“We can’t renovate our house because if we spend on it, it might just be demolished tomorrow,” he added.
Ten cities in Metro Manila have several barangays that are directly and indirectly affected by the NSCRP.
In Muntinlupa alone, eight out of nine barangays will be impacted. These are Sucat, Buli, Cupang, Alabang, Bayanan, Putatan, Poblacion, and Tunasan, whereas the majority of the total land area is allocated for residential and commercial use.
According to the environmental impact assessment (EIA) report of the NSCRP, this project has significant disruptions such as:
- Land tenure: Displaced informal settlers face uncertainty due to land acquisition efforts.
- Visual and environmental quality: The aesthetic and quality of the areas are degraded due to clearing, waste generation, and improper handling of hazardous materials.
- Risk to communities: Residents near the construction zone face heightened risks of natural disasters.
But where’s the relocation site?
The looming threat of eviction has sparked concerns of relocation among the urban poor, particularly in Barangay Putatan.
Several Putatan residents had attended meetings where the Department of Transportation, Socialized Housing Finance Corporation, and other agencies discussed the project, including possible relocation sites for them in the city as well as in Cavite and Laguna provinces.
“They would show us pictures and blueprints of the apartments during our last meeting. And we’re unsure where we’d be relocated—it’s all just meetings,” a skeptical Luzviminda Guerrero told Manila Today.
“I also don’t immediately believe what I hear. What’s important is the security of having a home to move to and a strong community,” she added.
Some residents’ homes along the railway have been tagged to indicate that they have been interviewed and assessed for the promised resettlement.
Based on the resettlement action plan (RAP) of the NSCRP’s southern section (Tutuban to Calamba), the resettlement is estimated to cost $1.2 billion or around Php 63.1 billion. This covers costs on land and structure acquisition, resettlement assistance, development of relocation sites, compensation for crops and trees, livelihood restoration, and RAP implementation and monitoring.
Land acquisition covers 16.5 hectares in Muntinlupa.
PNR chair Michael Macapagal said in April that the relocation of informal settlers along the NSCR route in Metro Manila would begin anytime.
Macapagal said that there was a directive from Malacañang and Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista to relocate affected persons to the same provinces or municipalities where they initially resided. This means that if informal settlers were removed from Muntinlupa, they should also be relocated to Muntinlupa.
However, he further noted the challenges following the relocation initiatives, especially regarding right-of-way (ROW) issues.
“We will start tracking relocation and fencing by April. In the course of doing that, we will encounter ROW issues, which we will address on a case-to-case basis,” Macapagal added.
Macapagal added that they have coordinated with the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) and the National Housing Authority (NHA) the establishment of alternative resettlement facilities for affected individuals.
In 2019, the Muntinlupa city government issued Executive Order No. 1 to create a local inter-agency committee (LIAC) for the NSCRP. The following year, the city government proposed amendments to the creation of LIAC to provide the overall direction for the relocation of affected households of the NSCR, among many projects in the city.
Meanwhile, data from the RAP shows that the location of resettlement sites has yet to be identified for the affected residents of Muntinlupa. As of January 2020, only the Manila local government has proposed relocation for the affected residents of the project in Tanza, Cavite, leaving Makati, Taguig, Parañaque and Muntinlupa cities to determine the possible resettlement areas.
Like the other areas of the railway project’s southern section, Muntinlupa faces significant challenges related to ROW acquisitions. Such issues stem from the need to relocate both formal and informal settlers and compensate landowners, which often leads to project delays.
That was why the Marcos administration established an interagency task force under Administrative Order No. 19 to streamline the ROW process to facilitate efficient land acquisition and mitigate disputes by involving multiple agencies and providing financial assistance to affected communities
Based on SCRP’s resettlement plan, there are 72,384 informal settlers in Muntinlupa, half of whom are in Alabang, Cupang, and Buli, all in Muntinlupa, and the rest in Sucat, in neighboring Paranaque City.
Overall, the number of informal settlers comprises 14% of the city’s total population of 504,509 as of 2015.
Meanwhile, in Buli, the community has long faced threats related to housing and the security of tenure. This led to Guevarra’s involvement in the urban poor organization called Bangon Maralita – KADAMAY in 2009.
“It feels like this kind of threat keeps repeating. We have been experiencing demolition threats for a long time, and now, here it is again. This is where I established my family. The first and always my question is, where will we go? How can we rise if everything suddenly disappears? That’s why I joined the protests back then; our lives are at stake here,” Guevarra said.
On the other hand, the suspension of PNR operations has left commuters stranded and workers dependent on its services struggling to make ends meet. Due to its suspension, Ramon Mangada also had to quit working.
He began as a trolley driver on the PNR tracks in the 1990s. He said it initially served as an extra source of income for him after he started a family at a young age.
Mangada’s daily routine typically begins at 4 a.m., ferrying passengers to work and school until 8 a.m. He returns to the tracks around 4 p.m. to wait for passengers again at 8 p.m. With this routine, he usually makes two or three daily trips, though this depends on the number of passengers and the availability of other trolley drivers.
“They say that transportation will be faster with the PNR upgrades. But as trolley drivers, this leaves us without a livelihood,” said Mangada.
Based on the resettlement plan for SCRP, Mangada is entitled to a maximum of P15,000, but this is in the form of “training aimed at improving their income level upon displacement.” He has reservations about what kind of training this entails and isn’t inclined to accept it.
“Some days, my highest earnings are only P80. I’m lucky if I make a hundred with all the effort I put in. But this supposed allocation doesn’t seem like actual cash. That’s hard to believe,” he said.
Mangada has observed many changes in this line of work, starting with gradually reducing trolley drivers from the original 10 to four.
He has also taken on various jobs over the years, including fishing, construction work, and serving as a barangay watchman in his community.
Aside from losing his livelihood, his home also faces the threat of demolition due to the NSCRP.
“I want to stay here, but with the current situation, finding affordable housing is tough,” he said.
In October 2021, the Muntinlupa City government and the Pag-IBIG Fund initiated the BALAI Munti Housing Project which consisted of 35 medium-rise buildings with 668 condominium units. This project provides affordable homes to city government employees, who can purchase these units through a Pag-IBIG housing loan.
Mangada didn’t qualify for the program even though he once worked for his local barangay. According to the Muntinlupa LGU, the housing project was open only to qualified city employees.
According to Inklusibo, an organization advocating for the rights of the informal sector, approximately 3.8 million Filipinos live in informal settlements while 4.5 million are homeless. The group also noted a 6.5 million housing backlog under the Marcos Jr. administration.
Meanwhile, the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) aims to complete over 12,000 housing units under the 4PH (Pambansang Pabahay para sa Pilipino Program), the administration’s flagship socialized housing program.
The 4PH targets 198,111 housing units, but only 12,731 are expected to be delivered—falling far short of the one million housing units the administration pledged to build annually until the end of the President’s term to address the socialized housing backlog.
In a recent report, Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco said that only 3.2 million units would be completed by 2028 due to delays and budget constraints.
People’s plan
“This is why we are pushing for the Muntinlupa LGU as well as different municipalities to support House Bill No. 5,” said Gabriela Muntinlupa coordinator Myrna Dela Concepcion.
House Bill (HB) No. 5 seeks to amend the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992 to establish a resettlement program for informal settler families (ISFs). HB No. 5 emphasizes on-site, in-city, near-city, or off-city relocation, ensuring that affected families remain close to their original communities, thus preserving their livelihoods and social ties.
“Through the People’s Plan, genuine consultation should be done with marginalized groups and settlers as the most vulnerable sector affected by such ambitious projects like the NSCRP. From what is being done, this appears to push for displacement,” Dela Concepcion said.
This, she added, was “no different” from the proposed Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program which results in forced eviction of urban poor communities although it has a noble objective of improving transportation and infrastructure.
The woman leader said displacement not only uproots families but also disrupts their lives and strips them of their security, community, and stability. She further noted that the urban poor already suffer from increases in the prices of basic commodities.
So far, only about 40% of the railway project has been completed, with the West Valenzuela-Clark segment, north of Manila, being the first to open and expected to operate in the first quarter of 2028.
In September, DOTr further reported that the Malolos to Clark has 33.06% completion while the Manila to Calamba has just begun its construction with 7.20% progress.
A decade of borrowing
According to Official Development Assistance (ODA) data, the NSCRP stands as the most expensive infrastructure project in over a decade. It is funded with a Japanese loan with a net commitment of $2.32 billion.
Since 2012, the Philippines has taken on foreign loans amounting to $92.38 billion across 312 loan projects. The Asian Development Bank holds the largest share with a $28.64 billion commitment for 92 projects, followed by Japan with $26.31 billion and the World Bank with $23.42 billion.
World Bank data from 1990 to 2022 shows that the Philippines’ interest payments as a percentage of revenue exhibit a boom-bust pattern.
Periods of significant decline occurred from 1990 to 1997 and from 2006 to 2019, while interest payments rose between 1998 and 2005 (reflecting the impact of the 1997 Asian financial crisis) and again from 2020 to 2022, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic challenges.
Accordingly, ODA priorities have shifted over time, responding to pressing national concerns such as Typhoon “Yolanda,” social protection, urbanization, and the pandemic.
ODA refers to government aid that promotes economic development and welfare in developing countries.
This story was produced with the support of Internews’ Earth Journalism Network as part of the Media Action on Sustainable Infrastructure in the Philippines Project.
