SPEAKER Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Tuesday said the House of Representatives will create an Oversight Committee on Urban Poor Housing.
In a news statement, Arroyo said the committee will monitor the implementation of Republic Act (RA) 9207, or National Government Center Housing and Land Utilization Act of 2003.
According to the speaker, the RA 9207 is the law that facilitated urban poor housing in Quezon City.
The new Oversight Committee will conduct it first hearing this Monday to thresh out the remaining problems of the residents in Barangay Holy Spirit.
Under RA 9207, the Oversight Committee will be chaired in the House by the Environment and Natural Resources Committee chairman, who is currently Cebu Rep. Rodrigo A. Abellanosa. Rep. Winnie Castelo of Quezon City will be a member of the committee and will chair the subcommittee on the concerns of Barangay Holy Spirit because he is the congressman of the said area.
Arroyo said the new oversight committee is consistent with her earlier pronouncement that the Lower House will hold its oversight functions in the remaining months of 17th Congress because they have already passed all the priority bills of President Duterte.
“We already passed many good laws, including my own law in 2003, that’s why they are now owners of their property. But what is important now is to make sure that they are well implemented. So this is part of what I have been saying that that’s the task I think the House of Representatives should be doing for the next six months,” she said.
Moreover, speaking during her consultation with beneficiaries of RA 9207, a law she signed when she was President in 2003, at the NGC West in Barangay Holy Spirit, Quezon City, on Tuesday, Arroyo said the Oversight Committee will make sure that the law is properly implemented.
Arroyo said hundreds of urban poor families in BarangayHoly Spirit in Quezon City, were awarded their own land as a result of RA 9207.
“While most of them had already been awarded their own titles, some problems still exist, particularly reports of land-grabbing and failure in the reblocking of some properties,” she added.
Arroyo has been going around the country to visit the urban poor housing beneficiaries during her administration. She signed more than 100 presidential proclamations, executive orders and laws that enabled thousands of urban poor families to acquire the land they have long been occupying.