Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The new law consolidates the functions of HUDCC and the Housing and Land
Use Regulatory Board, with the latter being reconstituted into the Human
Settlements Adjudication Commission. The different housing agencies—the
National Housing Authority, the Social Housing Finance Corp., the National
Home Mortgage Finance Corp., and the Home Development Mutual Fund (or
Pag-Ibig)—will remain as attached agencies to be governed by a single board,
with the exception of Pag-Ibig.
Compared to housing, the stakeholders of urban development are not only less
organized but are also mostly unaware of how urban development affects them.
Urban dwellers are concerned about employment, mobility, accessibility of
services and safety, which are greatly influenced by the manner and physical
characteristics of the growth of cities. Few people understand how the way
urban development is managed can affect their health and the time they will
spend going to work, or how fast the rents will go up in their neighborhood, or
the chances that their children will be able to afford the house that, according to
the government’s AmBisyon Natin 2040 road map, every Filipino family aspires
to have.
We bear the effects of poorly planned road networks and unregulated land uses
and largely regard them as “natural” consequences of urban growth, without
realizing how the government’s noninterventionist stance has produced the
unwanted pains of urban living. Policies, or the absence of policies, on density,
land use, public space and the layout of infrastructure and services can make a
difference in the way we experience city life.