Balancing the social cost of an SRP investment

About half a century ago, the late Dean Jeremias Montemayor gave us an accurate description of this problem called urban squatting. The name squatter has now metamorphosed into something less inglorious like informal settlers, but it is still the same scourge as it was described by the dean.

In his book Ours To Share, Montemayor points out that urban centers tend to magnetize those living in the provinces. Such lure as riding to work places (as opposed to walking to the farms), working in air conditioned offices (compared to tilling under the sun), enjoying late night recreations (in contrast to hearing the cicadas) are too much to resist. Some of them too are moved by the successes of their province mates who hit pay dirt not recognizing the fact that the tales of those who failed are far more numerous. So, at the first chance, they sell their farm lands, pack up their bags and hurry to the city only to find out that their lives in the city are far more daunting and oppressive than they had ever imagined.

The city environment is most often, unfriendly to new comers. High paying job, being offered to the highly educated and socially knowledgeable, is not easy to come by. Stuck in hostile environment, these settlers have to fend for themselves. It is but human nature. Their major concern is to find some vacant spots where to erect what they may call as home to protect them against the elements. Woe to the land owner who is not as vigilant because overnight, he loses possession of a prized land.

There is reason why I am summarizing the same problem Montemayor wrote about a long time ago. In many parts of the city, there are thousands of informal settlers. We can see them almost everywhere. They squeeze into every cranny available. What we take for granted is that they, cause seemingly insurmountable social problems, two of which we should point out specifically.

First, they impose heavy burdens to private land owners. While they settle on vacant lots without permission from the owners (and without paying any rent), they demand this thing called disturbance fee if asked to leave! Let us not forget that aside from squatting on privately owned lots, they also occupy parts of many city streets.

Second, they, without contributing a dime to the coffers, stretch the limits of the city's capacity to serve its people. The cost to the city for collecting additional garbage, providing health services to more people, increasing facilities for elementary and high school education, and making police visibility will have to multiply.

There is no doubt that the city needs the income expected from the locators of the South Road Properties. For so long a time, basic services have been hampered by lack of funds. Because we had to prioritize paying our humongous debt for the last several years, (one million pesos every day, according to the opposition), some city concerns have been sacrificed.

Now that we are the threshold of getting investors to put their money into the SRP, the city must guard itself from the inevitable surge of fortune seekers from nearby provinces for they will only compound our informal settlers. I suggest that a regulatory ordinance be enacted imposing upon prospective investors a forward plan to situate their workers and shoulder a part of maintaining a habitable environment for them. One immediate example I can see is a provision that large locators allocate a space for housing their workers and put up primary school system.

These additional costs should be factored in by investors in their plans. SRP players must be made to understand that they shall address the consequent social problems they create. It is unfair that the city alone takes the burden of solving some problems which arise because companies make money doing business at SRP. Freeing the locators of these problematic effects may also be useless for the city because it is possible that whatever the city may realize from the explosion of investments may only be gobbled up by the increase of its attendant expenditures.

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