Private sector to GMA: We’ll deliver thousands of socialized housing units

The private housing sector will commit to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo the delivery of thousands of completed socialized and economic housing units in the next few months to boost the government’s program for the homeless underprivileged and middle-income class.

And the sector expects to deliver more housing units if the Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund) will relax its lending policies, the Department of Agrarian Reform will support the housing program through faster land conversion, and the local government units will cut red tape in the processing of development permits.

The pledging session will be the highlight of the 2002 National Convention of the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Associations (CREBA) and the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) at the Baguio Country Club in Baguio City on Oct. 9, 10 and 11.

President Arroyo will be formally presented with a CREBA resolution committing on behalf of housing developers to take aggressive efforts to deliver thousands of housing with the assistance and facilities of government housing agencies under HUDCC.

This was jointly announced by Housing Secretary Michael T. Defensor , HUDCC chairman, and CREBA National President Florentino S. Dulalia Jr. All other housing industry associations have been urged to join the pledging session and make the same commitment to the President.

President Arroyo, in her recent State of the National Address, had identified housing as one of her administration’s priority programs responding to the people’s basic needs.

The Baguio City gathering is expected to be the biggest joint private sector-government convention. Florante C. Ofrecio is overall convention chairman, while HUDCC Undersecretary Armando de Castro is overall co-chairman. Dulalia, Ofrecio and Baguio City Mayor Bernardo Vergara will welcome the participants at the convention’s opening session on Oct. 9.

The three-day affair will feature dialogues with major department secretaries, including Defensor, Agrarian Reform Secretary Hernani A. Braganza, Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Heherson T. Alvarez, Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose D. Lina, and Tourism Secretary Richard J. Gordon, Chairman Bayani F. Fernando of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) will talk on good governance.