In Manila, urban poor organizations and NGOs such as Urban Poor Associates, CO Multiversity and Community Organization of the Philippine Enterprise (COPE) will hold a rally of some 3000 to 5000 urban poor to protest against demolitions and continuing neglect of the government to provide adequate shelter for the country’s urban poor.
They will march to the office of the Vice President who is also the chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and to demand that the so-called policy of “voluntary demolitions” be stopped and a demolition moratorium be imposed while government prepares for adequate resettlement.
Government agencies in recent months have been using this so-called voluntary demolition/resettlement ploy by threatening people with forced evictions and at the same time offering them with small amounts of money, or threatening them with forced evictions while offering to resettle them in sites that are very inadequate (no electricity, water, etc.). But they ask the affected families to sign waivers absolving government of its obligations to the socalled volunteer families.
This is satanic in its ingenuity since blame is now on the poor people for “freely” agreeing to something that is disadvantageous or bad for them. Or even on the NGOs since it shows that the NGOs have not consolidated the ranks of the people and thus some families agreed to the so-called voluntary scheme.
