DHSUD seeks P36-billion interest subsidy for housing production

The Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) has asked Congress for a P36-billion interest subsidy every year to go towards solving the six million units of backlog in housing production.

On Thursday’s deliberation at the House of Representatives, the DHSUD said the amount will help address issues in the current housing situation such as home security, environmental damage, sanitation, health and safety of the family, social and family dynamics, low family income, and socialized housing projects that are in isolated locations.

The DHSUD said it has set its focus on finishing the backlog of six million units by constructing one million houses every year for six years.

Acuzar said that in their program, the housing recipients will only have to pay the principal and one percent of the interest, while the interest subsidy the DHSUD is requesting from the government will pay for the rest of the interest. 

‘“Yan po yung pinresenta natin sa Malacañang with the Cabinet, ‘yan po ay in-approve ni President Bongbong Marcos Jr. Siya po ay minamadali niya po ako na yung one million houses in a year eh magawa po para hindi kami kapusin sa panahon,” DHSUD Secretary Jose Acuzar told the lawmakers.

(That was what we presented at Malacañang with the Cabinet. It was approved by President Bongbong Marcos. He is urging me to proceed with the one million houses a year so that we won't run out of time.)

Local jobs

Acuzar said the program will benefit informal settler families to be identified by local government units.

He said that this program will also generate more jobs for local developers and contractors.

“Ang ginawa po namin para ma-produce yung one million houses, ginamit po namin yung local government. Kasi po ang local government siya po ang makaka-alam ng beneficiaries, siya rin po ang makakaalam ang contractors and developers sa lugar nila,” he said.

(To produce the one million houses, we are working with the local governments, because they are the ones who know the local beneficiaries and the contracters and developers in their area.)

“In other words, pag local developers ang ginamit ko sa lugar nila, pati trabaho sa lugar nila mabibigyan ng trabaho yung mga constituent po ng local government, housing naman po nila ang gagawin. Ganyan po ang aming programa,” he added.

(When we use developers that are in that area, the area's constituents will get work. And it will be housing for them that will be built. That's our program.)

The housing sector budget comes to P4.029 billion in the 2023 National Expenditure Program, 48% lower than the 2022 housing sector budget and only 4.2% of the 2023 public housing sector proposed budget.

Of this total housing sector budget, P2 billion will be allocated to the National Housing Authority (NHA), P1.098 billion to the DHSUD, P500 million to the Social Housing Finance Corporation, and P431 million to the Human Settlements Adjudication Commission.

Budget cuts

Meanwhile, ACT Teachers party-list Representative France Castro asked about cuts to the housing budget, saying that the budget for the government employees housing program, which used to have P100 million, and the P2-billion emergency housing assistance program were not included in the budget.

“That was included in our request with DBM, kaso lang po ang naibigay lang po ni DBM is P2 billion [but the Department of Budget and Management only gave us P2 billion]...It was included in our P70-billion budget request,” National Housing Authority (NHA) Gen Manager Joeben Tai said.

“Problema ‘yan, di ba. Government employees housing project at for emergency, kung wala itong mga pondong ito, so paano na? Next year ba hindi na tayo makaka experience ng emergency? So matulungan man lang natin ang DHSUD para maibalik ito,” Castro replied.

(That's a problem, isn't it? If the government employees housing project and emergency housing don't have funds, what will happen? Are we not going to have emergencies next year? We should help the DHSUD to get these back.)

Tai, meanwhile, said that they have constructed and given out at least 265,000 housing units for calamity victims from 2016 to 2022.

“We give out housing units for the calamity victims. In fact from 2016 to 2022, we have constructed 265,000 housing units, and 162,000 of these are given to the beneficiaries for free sa mga Yolanda projects po ito [to the Super Typhoon Yolanda projects] and other calamity projects, this is 61% of our produced units,” he added. — BM, GMA News