Transformative Urban Resettlement in Metro Manila

18/06/2024

I am inviting all my friends to attend this Zoom webinar on JUNE 29 to get the fresh insight of a keen professional journalist on the Philippine national situation. Calendar this event -- not to be missed! I will be one of the co-hosts.

02/10/2020

“This should give pause to the perhaps inevitable tendency to wax nostalgic about the “pre-pandemic world,” from sitting in traffic for hours to having Noynoy Aquino at the helm of government. There is nothing to be wistful about car-centric road policy or a disdain for urban planning. Our hospitals had always been underfunded, our frontliners chronically overworked and underpaid, hunger and joblessness a perennial problem, yes, even under Aquino.

“Emancipatory politics,” wrote Mark Fisher, “must always destroy the appearance of a ‘natural order,’ must reveal what is presented as necessary and inevitable to be a mere contingency, just as it must make what was previously deemed to be impossible seem attainable.”

If the pandemic, and stories, are a portal, our passage is contingent on imagining something better, something new, not something old that suddenly becomes tolerable because we’ve seen worse. Emancipatory stories liberate from the easy, defeatist binary between an oppressive status quo and the other “carcasses” that masquerade as an alternative but in their own ways also enable the same oppression. Passing through is the first step; the next is choosing the direction.”

What can fiction provide in these times to reimagine our world anew?

16/02/2020

“The impression of public housing as dull, dilapidated, and dangerous has always worked in favor of those who would rather there be no public housing at all. Private real-estate developers, landlords, banks, and assorted wealthy people who don’t like paying taxes benefit enormously from our pessimism and lack of imagination. It galls and frightens them that we might someday start to view public housing not as emergency aid for the most destitute, but as an ambitious long-term solution and preferable alternative to the atomization, insecurity, and relentless exploitation of the private housing market — that is, that we might build public housing so attractive that people wouldn’t want to take out mortgages or pay market-rate rent anymore.

So they would rather we didn’t find out about Red Vienna, or Le Lorrain in Brussels, or Sa Pobla in Mallorca, or even the heyday of British council housing. These projects past and present demonstrate that social housing can be vibrant, safe and beautiful, all while being affordable and reliable for ordinary working people.”

From Vienna to Chile, the success of social housing for the working and middle classes shows how beautiful homes can coexist with urban housing for all.

10/01/2020

“We found that the initial negative effects were being driven by a reduction in trust of others around them in countries, with increased religious diversity. But after a period of four to eight years, individuals started to report mixing with people from different backgrounds, which improves their trust in others, promoting a positive impact on their quality of life. Importantly, the initial negative effect, whereby diversity was associated with reduced trust, was fully cancelled out by the positive effect of mixing with members of different groups.

Our findings show that, despite initial resistance, humans can cope with the documented challenges of diversity. They also show that, by focusing only on the short term, we may draw an inaccurate, pessimistic conclusion about the impact of diversity. An increase in diversity offers the opportunity for members of different groups to engage in contact, get to know each other, and cooperate. And when this occurs, this positive effect of diversity trumps the initial challenges.”

The ethnic and religious composition of our societies is increasing rapidly. How will these changes impact our quality of life?

27/12/2019

“We have survived, but this is the second time that we have experienced storm surge. The first was when we were hit by [Supertyphoon] ‘Yolanda.’ In both cases, our house was washed out,” said De Paz, 49, and a father of four.

Just like six years ago during Yolanda (international name: Haiyan), he also lost all their belongings, including his tools that he used in his work as a carpenter.

De Paz said that he was among Yolanda survivors awarded housing units but like many beneficiaries, he still went back to his old house because the resettlement sites were too far from where he worked.”

TACLOBAN CITY, Leyte, Philippines — Edwin de Paz is still in shock. He cannot believe that he lost his house again in just a span of six years. His house was among the 30 houses in

11/11/2019

“Some NHA officials (local office) were even reported to have received choice model units, with some getting multiple units for themselves, their families and close associates.

The reports of such irregularities are coming out as the region is preparing for the commemoration of the sixth anniversary of super-typhoon “Yolanda,” the strongest typhoon that hit a landmass in recent history.”

TACLOBAN CITY — A large group of “Yolanda” housing advocates and victims of the super-typhoon is asking the government to form an independent body to look into the alleged irregularities in the awarding of houses to the beneficiaries. The call was made amid reports that many officials of the l...

05/08/2019

“Can you really afford not to be interested or to participate in politics?”

04/08/2019

“Discussing disabilities is crucial with your children. Inclusion is more and more prevalent in classrooms, so it’s highly likely your children will encounter someone who has a disability. They might have a teacher with disability as well. They need to know that people who have disabilities are not special. They are the same as anyone else, but they have a disability they adapt to. You need to tell them it’s OK to be friends with them, but never OK to tease, bully, or leave them out of a group.”

"Show them it's completely normal to interact with someone who has a disability."

01/09/2014

Universities & Councils Network on Innovations for Inclusive Development in Southeast Asia (UNIID-SEA) together with Transformative Urban Resettlement in Metro Manila (TURMM) team of iBoP Asia program under the Ateneo School of Government presented the LGU Training Course and Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) to the mayors of Bantayan Island Cebu.

01/09/2014

Focus Group Discussion in Madridejos

The Transformative Urban Resettlement team of iBoP Asia program under the Ateneo School of Government conducted focus group discussion to Yolanda affected areas in the 4th district of Cebu, specifically Bogo, Daanbantayan, San Remigio, Bantayan, Sta. Fe, and Madridejos.

01/09/2014

The Transformative Urban Resettlement team of iBoP Asia program under the Ateneo School of Government conducted fgd to relocatees of Bistekville 1 that will measure their physical and behavioral transformation before and after relocation using the Community Transformability Dimensions (Physical, Economic, Social, Environmental and Institutional)