DAVAO CITY—The Pag-IBIG Fund said it noted a surge in housing demand across Mindanao despite the armed conflict in Marawi City. Demand was even higher in cities near Marawi, the head of the Fund said.
Acmad Rizaldy P. Moti, Pag-IBIG Fund CEO, himself a native of Marawi City, said the agency alloted P3 billion for the rehabilitation of the housing units of its clients in Marawi City. He added the fund plans to ask the administration of the Mindanao State University (MSU) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to free up portions of their unused land to settle the evacuees from Marawi City.
Moti said the siege in Marawi literally turned this lakeside city into ruins.
“Fortunately, it did not affect the interest of our members across Mindanao to apply for housing loans,” he added.
On the contrary, he said, “There is a huge spike in the takeout of housing loans in Iligan City and Cagayan de Oro City.” He added the fund targets reaching P8.6 billion worth of the takeout of loans at the end of the year.
“The demand is partly fueled by the moneyed Maranaos, who prefer to stay at a safer area, or areas where they feel more safe,” he said.
Iligan City is 37.9 kilometers north of Marawi City. The next bigger evacuation centers outside Lanao del Sur are located in this capital city of Lanao del Norte. Cagayan de Oro is northeast of Marawi City and is noted to have the best collection efficiency among the Pag-IBIG Fund areas in Mindanao.
He said the buying of even five- to 10-year-old houses in Iligan City has been brisk.
Moti added one housing project by the construction firm of former Sen. Manny Villar was already opened for takeout in Iligan City, and the Pag-IBIG Fund has expected more projects to come in these two Northern Mindanao cities.
He said the rehabilitation of Marawi City was likely to post another surge in the takeout of housing loans, but the problem was about land ownership, which kept away housing developers from undertaking any projects.
“Even before the fighting in Marawi City, the problem with the area was many residents occupy government lands,” he added.
About half of Marawi City’s land area of 8.755 hectares sits on the reservation lands allocated to the MSU and the AFP, he said.
He added he would propose to the MSU administration in a scheduled meeting with members of the Malacañang-formed rehabilitation Task Force Bangon Marawi “to give a portion of its reservation to the housing settlement for the Marawi City evacuees”.
As of August 29 the government tallied 104,220 evacuee-families, or about 466,000 individuals, said lawyer Jhan Ganda, who was among the evacuees and has worked with a Davao City-based private-donation campaign for the evacuees.
While Marawi City was one of the few urban areas in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with active Pag-IBIG Fund presence, this ownership problem remained unresolved.
“Developers would not venture into the areas without titles,” Moti said.
Part of the rehabilitation of its clients would focus on the nonresident workers of MSU, notably the faculty members.
“We would propose to the MSU Iligan Institute of Technology [IIT] to take in these MSU teachers as members of their housing project in Iligan City,” he said. The MSU IIT is among the network of colleges of the MSU system.
Next week, he added, he and the task force would try to persuade Ramon S. Ang of the San Miguel Corp. to donate 1,000 housing units.
“He had done it before. We hope he would do it again for the Marawi City settlement,” he said.