REACTION PAPER ON THE OPINION OF DR.

JESUS LIM ARRANZA ABOUT SQUATTING PROBLEM AND ITS SOCIAL ILLS
Submitted by: Engr. Neil Faustino C. Vigo II

Dr. Jesus Lim Arranza’s article “Squatting Problem and Its Social Ills” (Business Mirror, March 1,
2018), is about the problem that the country is facing on the emergence of real squatters and
professional squatters. He stated in his article that due to the soft treatment of squatters by public
and private sectors, including the church, the country is facing a very tall task in addressing the
squatting problem since this problem needs to be addressed comprehensively at its social,
economic and moral aspects. This soft treatment of squatters is being taken advantage and
abused by the squatters especially the professional squatters, who are either employed or have a
stable source of income and have the capacity to rent, buy or build a decent house but just chose
to squat in order to take advantage of all the advantages that it bring to them. On the other hand,
real squatters, who are really poor and do not have the means to own or rent a proper dwelling
place, need the help of the government in order to be relocated in a safer relocation site with a
livable community and should be provided with a source of income within the relocation site. As
stated by Dr. Arranza, “squatting is a social problem that is rooted on distorted moral values”. He
also emphasized in his article the seriousness of this problem and the importance for the
concerned government officials to act on this problem seriously and immediately due to the
dangers and hazards that squatting bring to the squatters themselves and also the problems that
it brings not only to the community of squatters but also to the entire community of legitimate
homeowners. He believes that with determination, commitment and involvement of the
community, squatting can be prevented, and in order to do this, full implementation of housing
rules and laws is needed among the government authorities especially barangay officials, utility
companies and community members. However, it is unfortunate that the problem on squatting
has become a political issue and that it has become an issue between political and community
interests. So, Dr. Arranza is calling out the political and business leaders to also protect the rights
of legitimate property owners since it is also the responsibility of concerned local government
officials to protect everyone’s homes from the hazards that the squatter colonies bring, and to
protect the legitimately-owned properties from being occupied by squatters.
One of my reactions to the article was the emergence of the squatters, especially the professional
squatters, due to the soft stance of the society in addressing this problem. In my opinion, this
boils down to two major factors, the humanitarian factor and the political factor. First, the
humanitarian factor. Whenever the humanitarian aspect comes into play, those who are just trying
to implement their duty in order to address the squatting problem usually becomes the antagonist
of the story. Some men in uniform and/or government personnel even get hurt from the flying
rocks, bottles and other hard and sharp objects that are being thrown to them by the squatters,
and worse, from the direct assault from the illegal settlers during confrontation whenever
demolition of illegal structures are being implement. Most of the time, once news on

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REACTION PAPER ON THE OPINION OF DR. JESUS LIM ARRANZA ABOUT SQUATTING PROBLEM AND ITS SOCIAL ILLS
Submitted by: Engr. Neil Faustino C. Vigo II

demolition/eviction of squatter community spreads out, those men in uniform and even
government employees from the demolition/eviction team who get hurt due to the resistance of
the squatters during the demolition process, is always just the tip of the iceberg of the story. The
humanitarian point of view is always the bigger part of the story and even leads into a prolonged
discussion, argument and even unsolicited comments. The humanitarian point of view is always
being used to somewhat side or sympathize with the illegal dwellers. Human rights advocates and
the church may have a clean intention in sympathizing with the squatters that are being evicted
but there are always those people in our society that are using this opportunity to play the
protagonist role or the “hero/savior of the poor” role for personal interest. These are mostly those
that are involved in politics who rely in the votes of these people. Obviously, and also as
emphasized by Dr. Arranza in his article, “the squatter communities are vote-rich communities”.
They are the type of voters who usually don’t look at the credentials of the political candidates
and their political platforms which will help for the betterment of the country but will just vote for
the political candidates who they can benefit from the most, mainly those who will just turn a
blind eye or will even tolerate their squatting. Let us take the punching incident on July 2011 by
the then Davao City Mayor Sarah Duterte, now the Vice President of our country, as an example.
She punched a very afraid Davao City Regional Trial Court sheriff four times that all landed on the
face of the helpless sheriff who is just trying to do his job on implementing a court order on the
demolition of illegal structures in Agdao, Davao City, despite her knowing that these are illegal
structures and are not supposed to be there in the first place since the lot is legally owned by
someone. But why did the then Mayor Sara Duterte sided with the illegal settlers despite being a
lawyer by profession herself who knows the importance of abiding the law very well? At least I
honestly believe that she sided with them due to humanitarian reasons and not because of any
political or hidden personal interest. I also believe that lots of these squatters are real squatters
that need the support of the government. However, I’m also sure that lots of them are professional
squatters and even squatting syndicates who illegally built structures on somebody’s property and
even earn great deal of money from it by having the units/rooms rented by someone else. These
kind of support by a very powerful politician or government official, regardless whether due to
humanitarian reason, personal interest or politically motivated, is the reason why these squatters
wrongly gain such courage to resist the demolition order knowing that they have the sympathy
and backing of some powerful people and institutions. Worse is that the professional squatters
and squatting syndicates are actually taking advantage of the sympathy and support that they are
getting due to humanitarian reasons. The truth is, these type of squatters doesn’t need nor
deserve humanitarian considerations. They are very opportunistic and very powerful individuals
or syndicates. These professional squatters and squatting syndicates have the money, high caliber

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REACTION PAPER ON THE OPINION OF DR. JESUS LIM ARRANZA ABOUT SQUATTING PROBLEM AND ITS SOCIAL ILLS
Submitted by: Engr. Neil Faustino C. Vigo II

lawyers and even connections to engage in a very long, stressful and expensive legal battles. They
have the capacity to bribe and even terrorize or threaten government officials who are just trying
to do their work on the facilitation of eviction or demolition of illegal structures of these groups. I
can personally attest to this because my father-in-law, a retired high-ranking government official
from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), was forced into an early
retirement due to the pressure and stress that he and his family experienced during his battle
with the professional squatters and squatting syndicates after he spearheaded the eviction of
these professional squatters and squatting syndicates from a 40 hectares Forest Reservation in
Camp John Hay, Baguio City, Benguet (formerly US reservation that has been handed over to
DENR by US Government when they left Camp John Hay in 1991). They have high caliber lawyers
from well-known law firms representing them in court, overpowering the lawyers of DENR. My
father-in-law even suspected that there may even be a possibility that these lawyers are
manipulating/controlling the lawyers of DENR. Prior to the long legal battle, these squatting
syndicates also tried to bribe my father-in-law when they learned that he will be in-charge of
DENR’s plan on demolition of their illegally built structures on said forest reservation. My father-
in-law even started receiving harassment through anonymous calls when he did not accept the
bribe and proceeded with the demolition.
There is also another instance that shows how hard it is to deal with these squatters. In my work
wherein, we are tasked to implement the Pambansang Pabahay Para sa Pilipino Housing (4PH)
Program of President Ferdinand (Bongbong) Marcos Jr. to address the six million housing backlog
of the country. We are receiving lots of visits, calls and letters from Local Government Units
(LGUs), private groups and individuals showing their intent to support or participate in the 4PH
program. There are even some individuals that are offering to donate huge portions of their lot to
the government which will then be used for the construction of socialized housing under the 4PH
Program. At first, this amazes me thinking that there are still people with good heart who are
willing to donate their property for the program for the benefit of other people especially the
informal settlers who are desperately in need of a decent home, only to learn about their real
motive that they are just offering to donate potion of their lot in order to solve the severe squatting
problem on their lot. The idea is to let the government, the Department of Human Settlements
and Urban Development-ISF Relations in particular, to solve the squatting problem on their
property by negotiating and convincing the informal settlers to be the beneficiaries of the
socialized housing that will be built on the same lot where they are currently squatting. This
approach will consolidate all the informal settlers in the socialized housing that will be built on the
portion of their lot that they are willing to donate, or in reality “forced to sacrifice”, so that they
can at least salvage the remaining part of their lot. Just imagine that these land owners have to

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REACTION PAPER ON THE OPINION OF DR. JESUS LIM ARRANZA ABOUT SQUATTING PROBLEM AND ITS SOCIAL ILLS
Submitted by: Engr. Neil Faustino C. Vigo II

resort to this kind of desperate strategy just to address the squatting problem in the property that
they legitimately own since they know that evicting these squatters is a very hard, stressful, time
consuming and very costly task.
For all the dangers that squatters bring to themselves and the problems that they bring to the
community, these squatting problems needs to be solved once and for all, especially the
professional squatters and squatting syndicates. As previously stated, this may be a very tall order
but doable if taken seriously and addressed comprehensively. I agree with Dr. Arranza that the
first thing that needs to be done is to identify the real squatters from the professional squatters
because these two types of squatters needs to be addressed separately since the proper approach
to this two types of squatters are very different. The real squatters need to be helped while the
professional squatters need to be eradicated and severely punished.
For the real squatters, a quick solution of relocation and provision of a decent place to live in is
not the complete solution to finally solve the problem on recurrence of real squatters. Addressing
the reason on why they are forced to squat and why they keep on coming back to their preferred
squatting area is the root cause of the problem that needs to be addressed. First problem is the
lack of job or source of income within the relocation area so provision of livelihood or steady
source of income for the relocated squatters within the relocation area is very important. Second
problem is the availability of community and commercial facilities such as public market, school,
hospital and religious institutions within the relocation sites because without these facilities which
are the basic components of a livable community, it will be a big burden for the relocated informal
settlers to travel back and forth to these facilities on a regular basis. For low income earners,
spending one hundred pesos on a regular basis for a back and forth tricycle fare just to go to the
public market or any community facility is very hard to bear because to them, this is already
equivalent to one kilo of rice and two cans of sardines that their family can share for a meal. Third,
the availability of public transportation to and from the relocation area is also a must. Lastly,
considering that the government has done their job to address the first three problems that I
previously mentioned, the relocations units should be non-saleable and non-transferrable and
doing so will not only get the beneficiary from being blacklisted to avail another similar housing
program but should also be punished by law. This last solution should be applicable not only to
professional squatters but to real squatters as well.
Now on addressing the problem on professional squatters and squatting syndicates. The only
solution to these type of opportunistic people is complete eradication. You need to hunt these
menaces of the society who even earn money from other informal settlers in exchange for “rights”
to live in the property that they don’t even own. These syndicates even use fake documents such
as titles to sell or convince victims of their legitimacy. We already have the necessary law, Section

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REACTION PAPER ON THE OPINION OF DR. JESUS LIM ARRANZA ABOUT SQUATTING PROBLEM AND ITS SOCIAL ILLS
Submitted by: Engr. Neil Faustino C. Vigo II

27 of Republic Act 7279 otherwise known as the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992, to
criminalize these professional squatters. Maybe a higher penalty and a longer imprisonment will
be better. However, these professional squatters cannot be punished if they will not be caught.
So as I previously said, they must be hunted like how all criminals should be hunted.
So I salute the likes of Mayor Antonio L. Kalaw of Los Baños Laguna and Mayor Maria Sheilah
“Honey” Lacuna-Pangan of Manila on taking a step further in solving the professional squatters
by signing executive orders in their respective municipality/city that would go after professional
squatters in their respective city.

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