The government needs the help and cooperation of the private sector to close the housing gap, according to the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD).
In a statement on Sunday, the DHSUD said it will sign a memorandum of cooperation (MOC) with the Philippine Association of Real Estate Boards (Pareb) to allow more Filipinos to own homes.
The DHSUD said the country’s housing gap is expected to widen to 6.57 million by 2022.
“The government can only do so much. We have to find comfort in recognizing that with the help of the private sector such as Pareb, the pooling of private and government resources, we can produce faster results,” DHSUD Secretary Eduardo D. del Rosario said.
Del Rosario said public-private cooperation can help weather the challenges faced by the housing sector, apart from the ongoing economic and health crises brought by the pandemic.
These other challenges include urbanization and the rise in the country’s population as well as the limited supply of government land for residential use.
The sector, Del Rosario said, is also faced with the adverse impact of climate change and limitations on the DHSUD budget for 2021.
Under the P4.506-trillion proposed 2021 budget submitted by the Executive branch to Congress, the DHSUD led the list of agencies facing the biggest budget cuts.
Under the Executive’s proposed 2021 budget, the DHSUD will receive only P632.601 million, which is 29.16-percent less than its budget this year of P893.06 million under the 2020 General Appropriations Act.
“We appreciate this cooperation, this partnership, because I have been saying that the department, the government cannot survive without full cooperation and support from the private sector. So, this memorandum of cooperation is very much welcome on the part of the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development,” del Rosario said.
The MOC, once signed, will become the second agreement signed by Pareb with the national government.
In 2018, Pareb signed the then-Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, which Del Rosario chaired, prior to its merger with the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board last year.
In order to address the housing gap the DHSUD decided to create a 20-year housing road map. Del Rosario said the housing road map, which is slated to be released in October, will identify short-term, mid-term and long-term strategies that will help boost the country’s ability to close the housing gap.
The official said the government is currently working toward increasing the number of housing units that need to be produced annually.
Del Rosario said to close the housing gap of 6.5 million between 2017 and 2020, the government needs to build 250,000 houses a year. But currently, the housing sector is only able to build 203,000 to 205,000 units annually between 2016 and 2019.
The housing czar said that while this is still short of the target, this has already been improved from the 172,000 houses built annually prior to the Duterte administration.
Del Rosario said priorities that the road map seeks to focus on are addressing the availability of funds for public housing; measures improve housing planning and development coordination; and streamlining process for permits and clearances including “unlocking government lands for housing.”