Nowhere in the incident reports issued by commie publication Bulatlat did information surrounding the legality of the demolition victims’ residency in the area come up. The only piece of information remotely pertaining to some semblance of legal argument in the report was around a “notice of demolition” that supposedly expired several months ago. According to Jun Luna of the Anakpawis Partylist, “no court order was presented to the residents, as required by the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992” and that the demolition was therefore “illegal”. But a statement issued by “youth group” Anakbayan referred to an “expired Court order dated September 2013”. The trouble with all these commie factions is that they don’t get their story straight before going on record.
So were the “victims” of this demolition legal residents of San Roque, Agham in the North Triangle area in Quezon City? Or are they really all just a bunch of squatters? We can’t really rely on Bulatlat to tell us for obvious reasons. Accounts of how the residents reacted to the arrival of the demolition crew were quite telling…
At around 6:00 a.m., around 1,000 police, members of SWAT and a demolition team arrived in North Triangle. In response, residents barricaded their homes.
Apparently, these “residents” were quite familiar with the drill. And, as expected, Anakbayan has swooped in with one of their standard-form statements to save the day…
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We condemn in the strongest terms possible today’s violent demolition of homes in the urban poor community of North Triangle in Quezon City, including the mass arrest of at least 17 resisting residents, the indiscriminate attacks of the police against bystanders, and the sheer illegality of the entire operation.
According to initial reports, 17 North Triangle residents were arrested today. Most of them were actually assisting children and even toddlers who were affected by the indiscriminate use of tear gas by elements of the PNP. The arrested have reportedly been brought to Camp Karingal in Q.C, while those injured, including those who suffocated on tear gas, were rushed to the Veterans Medical Center.
In addition, residents have said that there is no legal basis for today’s demolition: the demolition team is using an expired Court order dated September 2013. They were not given any advance notice by the proper authorities, as mandated by law.
Worst of all, officials from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and the Philippine Commission on the Urban Poor (PCUP) ignored repeated pleas by the residents for a dialogue between the latter and the PNP.
The following events and circumstances indicate an all-out government effort to wreck the homes of thousands of North Triangle residents. Legal procedures were ignored, and government assistance was deliberately withheld.
Why is the government doing this? Because Ayala Land, which wants to build a Quezon City Central Business District (Q.C CBD) over the homes in North Triangle, is already foaming in the mouth for the expected mega-profits from their project.
We condemn the Aquino regime for taking up the interests of the Ayalas, and the elite few in general, over the welfare of the poor. We demand the swift release of those arrested, and those responsible for injuring the residents to be punished. Also, that there be an immediate moratorium to all, including future, demolition operations in North Triangle.
If Filipino commies had their way, most of Metro Manila would look like this.
So much of the irony in such populist rhetoric simply flies over the heads of the nation’s commies. To Bayan Muna Representative Neri Colmenares, for example, the problem is really quite simple: “The government must instead solve unemployment.”
Dang, now why didn’t I think of that?
But then, how exactly Colmenares proposes this unemployment be “solved” remains a mystery. Taken on a per square metre employment yield, however, dense urban development the likes of which only the biggest and most highly-capitalised developers could undertake certainly contributes a lot more to addressing Colmenares’s plea than deferring to the “demands” of a bunch of people holding dubious claims to residency in the area in question.
More importantly, Metro Manila’s legal residents who have long-suffered from the horrendous traffic, chronic flooding, and festering squalor of the country’s premier metropolis are all but fed-up with the vast colonies of parasitical squatters that surround them…
The squatter problem in the Philippines has been made complicated by misguided Filipinos who think that it is the Philippine government’s sole responsibility to provide housing, education and health for them. Not only is this notion unsustainable, it is an unfair burden on taxpayers.
Retired Chief Justice Reynato Puno recently said that “Filipinos must be able to demand from their government their right to housing, education and health, or these socioeconomic rights would remain mere words on paper.” While Puno’s sentiments seem noble, Filipino taxpayers simply cannot afford to fund the growing number of Filipinos living below the poverty line. Some of these squatters, despite living in tiny quarters no bigger than a box, have no qualms about multiplying at a fast rate. Perhaps they have been led to believe that their children can be used to gain access to hand outs from the government.
Filipino politicians do not help solve the problem of squatters at all. If anything, they actually contribute to their proliferation. The root cause of the squatter problem seems to be the lack of urban planning from each Barangay and weak enforcement of the law by members of various agencies who are not doing their jobs properly. Obviously, they did not nip the problem in the bud. Had they been doing their jobs, they could have easily evicted the first squatter before they multiplied and became the enormous problem they are today.
Colmenares and his comrades need to do a bit more homework before they issue their two-cent opinions on the matter of the vast unemployment problem that Filipinos suffer. An ability to pull “employment” out of a hat would certainly be a nice thing, if that notion did not exist only in the fantasy doctrines of old-hat communist dogma. For now, my personal reactionary views seem to hold a bit more water than the tired slogans of these misguided tulisanes.
[Photo of San Roque squatters courtesy Quezon City Slums.]
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Unless proved otherwise, they are langaw on a carabao, the squatters can go somewhere else.
We have too many poor subhumans in our country, anytime we make a new development, always gonna have some of them wanting some of the action.
sometimes makes you want to treat them like the zombies in House of the Dead or Left4Dead, don’t it?
shooting zombies in video games and shooting real people are way different. Have you ever shot a person before?
There are more than enough jobs available in our country, what we lack are people to fill in those jobs. Employers don’t need useless wastes of space that lack the skills that employers require or are looking for. They need competent hard workers and not layabouts.
It would be nice if someone with enough pull or enough followers would actually get that message out there!
I agree, failing that GRP would benefit from getting advice from a pr firm on how to increase exposure.
My sons facebook page gets more activity than this website, either the content here is not resonating with the public or the writers just don’t have enough pull or followers to take it to the higher level.
It’s a noble goal they have, but methinks they may not be the “ones” that will have any effect in the mission to enlighten the misguided masses.
LOL…you blame GRP for Da Pinoy’s lack of substance? Give me a break.
Are you going to give us funds to hire a “PR firm”? 😉
To quote GRP’s mission statement:
The government should stop giving Conditional Cash Transfers in Metro Manila and the surrounding provinces. If individuals want assistance they should return to their home provinces. A policy decision along these lines may put a dent in the trend of the poorest and least skilled flocking to the NCR.
I agree, but I think the government should also consider investing in countryside development so there will be good job opportunities in the provinces, which may entice these people to go back there.
All the past administrations in recent memory have emphasised dole-outs as part of their domestic policy. Even the comprehensive agrarian reform program is little more than redistribution of land resources. Philippine government policies need to promote growth in the agri-industrial sector, one of the key drivers of investment and economic growth.
I have to disagree about having more than enough jobs, if so, we would have a lot less filipinos turning into OFWs.
While you may be correct in saying that jobs do not get filled because of a certain mismatch of skills and ultimately the applicants attitude towards work. A typical laborer may only be useful for 6 months or less depending on his length of time before he loses interest on his job. Maybe fostered by contractualization from Aquino ver 1.0?
During the reign of Pol Pot in communist Cambodia. He simply forced people out of the big cities, to live in the countryside. Those who will not leave , were shot; and were hastily buried in mass graves. This was how Pol Pot of Cambodia, solved Cambodia’s Squatter problem.
To fully establish his communist hold on Cambodia. He murdered people who looked intellectual; like people wearing eyeglasses. Cambodians went to work in the countryside to dig irrigation ditches and canals, without plans. To plant rice. So, doctors, teachers, lawyers, intellectuals, business people were forced to become farmers.
The tactic of the NPA communists to take the side of the oppressed, will never work. People know thru the Information Technology Media; how the communists behave, when they get power. I am not condoning Squatting, because of the fast expanding population and the severe unemployment in the Philippines, are one of the reasons ; people become squatters. If me and my family, have no place for a home…I would do the Squatting , myself…
Like what I’ve always been saying, the government might as well just massacre every squatter, considering they don’t seem to have any intention at all to uplift their lives. They can even get Ampatuan to do the job if they want. XD
nuff said.. the government needs to implement the law.period. democracy doesnt mean “free” everything. You need to work for things you want. About the so called activists, Commies in our country are just a bunch of misguided individuals who long for affiliation cause they’re all losers back in high school.