STAR Group joins ‘Jubilee Homes’

Groundbreaking ceremonies were held the other day in Pulang Lupa, Las Piñas for the construction of homes for the poor, with STAR employees among the volunteers who rolled up their sleeves and did the spadework.

STAR men picked up shovels and trowels, and the women assisted them by carrying pails of cement to help low-income families who pre-qualified to become among the first beneficiaries of the Jubilee Homes for the Poor, in a barangay aptly named Luckyville.

The housing project is a joint undertaking of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), the Philippine Solidarity Fund (PSF) and Habitat for Humanity Phi-lippines.

Qualified Filipinos of any faith stand to benefit from the 600 Habitat-type homes to commemorate the great Jubilee Year that started in January 2000.

The volunteers from The STAR were led by deputy managing editor Antonio Katigbak.

Jose Lugay, president of PSF, and Antonio de los Reyes, president of Breaking the Yoke Poverty Foundation, hailed Friday the latest batch of volunteers to help put up the 60 to 80 housing units at the site.

Others who helped in the groundbreaking were from the United Coconut Planters Bank, Assumption College, and from the community association in Luckyville which provided the land for the project.

Lugay and De los Reyes, along with the respective donors of the newly built housing units, formally turned over the individual titles of the houses to the first five family beneficiaries who got their early Christmas gifts to own their dream homes.

The first five homes, with 25-square meter floor areas, were among the two-story units completed in a row of townhouse-type Habitat Village at Luckyville.

The beneficiaries are the Cacals (three children), the Prietos (three children), Roselie Perrin and her three children, the Valladolids (one child) and the Bernardinos (one child).

The donors were the Segundos of Detroit, Michigan, the Lisings of Los Angeles, California, and the Santoses and the Viñases of Manila.

In his remarks, De los Reyes said their foundation intends to pursue the project for the entire 25 years of the Jubilee period.

"So we hope and pray that there will be no more homeless by that time, not because we’re still here. But after 25 years, we hope and pray that your generation of young volunteers are still here to continue this endeavor for our homeless brothers," De los Reyes said.

"We have 25 years to go with our vision of eradicating the homeless in the Philippines. So this is the first step in the long journey," he said.

In his own remarks, Lugay said the Church-led housing project is "not merely building houses" but also to promote the Filipino spirit of "bayanihan" or helping one’s neighbors.

"We hope to instill those who will be living in this Jubilee Homes Village the spirit of helping those who have less in life," Lugay pointed out.

Lugay noted though that the beneficiaries of the Jubilee Homes were "not yet the poorest of the poor" because they were precisely selected for their family’s ability to pay for the low cost housing unit acquired in most affordable terms.

"There are more people around us, the street children, the elderly and other disadvantaged persons that we need to help," Lugay urged.

Beneficiary families are selected by Habitat for Humanity’s Homeowner Selection Committee, joined by a person designated by the Council of Laity and approved by the Diocesan bishop.

The prospective homeowners must have an average income of P3,000 monthly and will each put in 400 man-hours of "sweat equity" in the construction of their dream homes.

After the unit is turned over to the homeowner, the family will pay for it in monthly installments of P850 over 15 years, profit- and interest-free but adjusted for inflation.

Individual titles will not be transferred to the homeowners but to the Community Association in order to prevent speculative selling and profit-taking.

The homeowner can resell the unit only to the association and will be paid only the sum of his repayments. The vacated unit will then be assigned to another selected homeless family. — Marichu Villanueva