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Institute of Social Order, Ateneo de Manila
11 November 2009
delivered by
LEILA M. DE LIMA
Chairperson
HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE PHILIPPINES
IN CONNECTION WITH THE SUPREME COURT DECISION
G.R. Nos. 171947-48 (The Manila Bay Case)
The will to live is insuppressible. Walang sinumang makapipigil ng pagnanais ng taong mabuhay – mabuhay ng matiwasay, mabuhay ng mapayapa, mabuhay ng tahimik.
Humahanga ang mga banyaga sa atin, mga Pilipino, dahil sa katangian nating matiisin. Humahanga sila sa kakayahan nating tumawa kahit sa gitna ng unos at kalamidad. Humahanga sila sa kakayahan nating bumangon matapos ang matinding pagsubok.
Ngunit ang pagiging matiisin ang syang dahilan ng kakulangan natin sa pag-ahon sa malagim na kalagayan. Natitiis natin ang kahirapan. Natitiis natin ang pagsasawalang-bahala ng ating mga nanunungkulang mga opisyal. Natitiis natin kung kaya't hindi natin maramdaman ang pagbabago.
Hindi dadalawa lamang ang pagpipilian sa harap ng pagsubok – ang sumuko o ang magtiis. Nasa kakayahan nating lahat ang makapagdulot ng kontribusyon sa pagsulong ng pagbabago para sa kapakanan ng sambayanan.
No civilization had survived without grave challenges. And no civilization or nation has survived without overcoming the challenges. We need more than just to outlast the perils to our peaceful and prosperous existence. We must overcome the perils with more and more creative solutions.
Everyone must make a contribution to the solutions. Everyone is responsible.
***
What is placed before us today is a challenge to the will to live. We have both the Supreme Court decision in the Manila Bay Case and the directive to evict informal settlers along waterways and danger areas in the wake of Typhoon Ondoy. It is a challenge not just to the informal settlers, but it is a challenge that is far larger in breadth. It includes not only all residents of Metro Manila and all residents along the Pasig River system within and beyond the boundaries of the metropolis – it includes all the succeeding generation of Filipinos, our children and our children's children who will replace us in this city we call home. It is a challenge to the future of Manileños.
Human Rights encompasses several rights and cuts across several segments of society. After all, all rights are indivisible, universal and equally important. In an ideal world, all rights can be equally protected and with equal priority. The Supreme Court Decision in the Manila Bay Case is an example of the difficult task of balancing equally important interests. The issues of sustainable development and ecological balance are pitted against the right to live – the right to a have home, the right against unlawful evictions, the right to development, the right to a living wage and other rights.
Karapat-dapat bang paghambingin ang mga karapatang 'to upangmapagpilian kung alin ang mas mahalaga? Tunay bang mas mahalaga ang mga karapatang pang-ekolohiya o karapatan ng mga susunod pang mga henerasyon ng mga Pilipino?
Ultimately, however, the right of both the present and future generations to a balanced ecology is inseparable from the right to a dignified life. We have long ignored our duty to sustain environmental protection, which in turn threatens to rob us all of a habitable city and a dignified and secure way of life. We may very well end up with neither a balanced ecology in the metropolitan area nor decent living conditions. This is the import of the Manila Bay case – that we cannot shirk from our duty to protect the environment because ultimately, it redounds to the protection of life.
The gravest repercussion of the Supreme Court decision is that there are many residents who are settlers along waterways who must be evicted. Where the government has been remiss in allowing illegal settlements in areas which directly compromise the ecology of the greater Manila area, impliedly it has condoned the will of people to live, even if it is in abject poverty and patent illegality.
However, the problem is much, much larger than simply an omission to guard danger zones from illegal structures. It came in several stages before we arrived at the dismal state that we are in at the moment. It begins with poor planning in terms of development. Where development centers in the National Capital Region, and the distribution of wealth and opportunity is narrowed to such a meager portion of territory, it is unavoidable that the population density would explode in Metro Manila and test the limits of our infrastructure.
Had unreasonably dedicated development centered in Manila been planned, then perhaps the next stage of the problem would have been better predicted and addressed, which is housing. Many informal settlers argue that jobs and earnings are here in the metro, and that this is where their children go to school and that there are a host of other conveniences available to them despite the illegality of their occupation. Despite their poverty, they still find a way to live, to earn and eat. Housing, then, that is proportional to the development dedicated to Metro Manila, should have had a proper place in the priority agenda of the local governments of Metro Manila.
Housing is especially important because if it were available, not only does it remove motivation to squat along and pollute waterways, it gives erstwhile informal settlers the opportunity to own real property, if not to simply legally occupy land by rent or otherwise. There are many informal settlers who have invested much in their homes, made permanent or semi-permanent structures, who have appliances no different from others lawful residents in the city. Then there are informal settlers who actually have the capability to pay some form of rent to other informal settlers who own illegal structures. Who knows if they could have had the means to purchase legitimate homes on credit had housing been available?
In fact, housing and the opportunity to own homes is vastly more important than simply legitimately occupying a living space, more important than living in security against eviction. Having legitimate title to land or real property is the traditional means to access credit. Where credit is available, so is the opportunity to generate more wealth thereby uplifting the standard of living. Who knows where all these settlers along rivers, esteros and other bodies of water would be and what conditions they would live in had there been a real opportunity to own homes?
What is clear is that we cannot continue to live this way, in urban decay and squalor. We cannot continue to reason that to fuel the country's economic development, we can ignore the booming population of Metro Manila. We cannot continue to allow people to live this way. Neither can we continue down this path at the cost of any standard of environmental protection.
The Commission on Human Rights has always been supportive of urban poor groups. We are concerned with the difficulties that the urban poor face, without even the specter of forced evictions. There is a need to ensure that the backbone of our urban labor force can live in decency and respectability in spite of their poverty. And where they face patently illegal eviction, we have to protect them.
However, we cannot protect human rights and at the same time, accommodate illegality. The delicate balance of upholding both human rights and other statutes has always been difficult – we cannot stop demolitions where they are legal and with basis. We cannot stop evictions where the purpose is to protect and promote another equally important right, which in this case is a balanced ecology.
The SC decision in the Manila Bay Case underscores a standard of environmental protection which the government must uphold. It comes at the cost of evicting the very people we need to protect the most – the poor and marginalized residents living illegally on waterways. The decision states:
“On July 9, 2002 , a Memorandum of Agreement was entered into between the DPWH and MMDA, whereby MMDA was made the agency primarily responsible for flood control in Metro Manila. For the rest of the country, DPWH shall remain as the implementing agency for flood control services. The mandate of the MMDA and DPWH on flood control and drainage services shall include the removal of structures, constructions, and encroachments built along rivers, waterways, and esteros (drainages) in violation of RA 7279, PD 1067, and other pertinent laws.”
Environmental protection and flood control are inseparable concepts. The removal of shanties along the waterways is not simply a knee-jerk reaction to the flooding caused by Typhoon Ondoy. Ondoy was just a reminder that LGUs and the MMDA and DPWH have not been doing their jobs in so far as flood control is concerned.
Now there is much discussion as to the causes of the floods throughout Metro Manila in the wake of Typhoon Ondoy. There is much speculation as to the causes, which include illegal settlements along waterways among others. We all know that the causes are much larger than the shanties built along waterways. Flood infrastructure, urban planning, disaster management, garbage collection and a host of other reasons and culprits have been named.
To determine and study carefully all the causes of the recent floods is well and good, especially for the purpose of guiding future governmental policy and action. However, there are some matters that have to be addressed with or without this proposed, in-depth study on flooding. Among them is the matter of removing illegal structures on or along waterways – which, even without the recent calamity, are still the responsibility of the local governments and concerned national agencies to undertake.
Should there be additional studies as to how to manage the housing problem of the metropolis? Absolutely. Should the government carry out these studies before evicting informal settlers? Definitely.
But when we speak of something as patently illegal as building structures on waterways, I am afraid that eviction in these cases are urgent. It must be done, despite the insistence of informal settlers that they have no other place to go. It must be done for their own safety and for the entire NCR population.
The flooding caused by Typhoon Ondoy wasn't only disastrous. The compromised flood control system of the metropolis has made incidence of flooding predictable. Without Ondoy, we already know that settlements on waterways impede the flow of water. Without Ondoy, we know that garbage introduced into the waterways is a serious consequence of allowing illegal settlements on or along waterways. And garbage also compromises the flow of water in the waterways. Flooding is not the only problem thus caused by these illegal structures. It is pollution. Whether we can or cannot properly assign an accurate contributory percentage to shanty-dwellers for the pollution in Manila Bay and the rest of the Pasig River system, the Supreme Court stated:
“The Court can take judicial notice of the presence of shanties and other unauthorized structures which do not have septic tanks along the Pasig-Marikina-San Juan Rivers, the National Capital Region (NCR) (Parañaque-Zapote, Las Piñas) Rivers, the Navotas-Malabon-Tullahan-Tenejeros Rivers, the Meycuayan-Marilao-Obando (Bulacan) Rivers, the Talisay (Bataan) River, the Imus (Cavite) River, the Laguna De Bay, and other minor rivers and connecting waterways, river banks, and esteros which discharge their waters, with all the accompanying filth, dirt, and garbage, into the major rivers and eventually the Manila Bay. If there is one factor responsible for the pollution of the major river systems and the Bay, these unauthorized structures would be on top of the list. And if the issue of illegal or unauthorized structures is not seriously addressed with sustained resolve, then practically all efforts to cleanse these important bodies of water would be for naught. The DENR Secretary said as much.”
We know there are many other culprits to the problem of pollution of the Pasig and Manila Bay . But the existence of other sources of pollution is not a ground to prevent the eviction of illegal settlements. Neither does there appear to be an order of priority. As much as the CHR would prefer that official action disturb human rights at the smallest measure only, in this case, the disturbance is regrettably unavoidable. If we do not remove the homes of the poor on the waterways, we abdicate on their right to safety. We abdicate on the rights of everyone in relation to ecological balance and inter-generational responsibility, which are also human rights.
Do we really need to wait for an in-depth study of all the causes of the recent flooding to compel us to clear the waterways? With a heavy heart, the answer is unavoidably a terse “NO”.
What exactly to do with evicted illegal residents along or on waterways has been addressed in varying forms by the different local governments. Some have offered relocation outside the metropolis. Some have offered a one-time relocation cheque for the Balik-Probinsya program. And some have turned a blind eye and allowed informal settlers to return to their occupation of waterways. Whatever the response is, it is clear that the law that condemns illegal settlements on waterways does not provide that relocation should be available for owners of nuisance per se structures. Where relocation is granted by local governments such as that of Marikina which has suggested settlements in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, it is almost out of beneficence. Where it is not granted, it cannot be demanded.
While the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) gives clear guidelines for eviction procedures, it is also very clear when it comes to structures illegally built on waterways. The SC decision in the Manila Bay Case states:
“Under Sec. 28 of the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992 (RA 7279), eviction or demolition may be allowed 'when persons or entities occupy danger areas such as esteros, … riverbanks, shorelines, waterways, and other public places … .' The MMDA, as lead agency, in coordination with the DPWH, LGUs, and concerned agencies, can dismantle and remove all structures, constructions, and other encroachments built in breach of RA 7279 and other pertinent laws along the rivers, waterways, and esteros in Metro Manila. With respect to rivers, waterways, and esteros in Bulacan, Bataan , Pampanga, Cavite , and Laguna that discharge wastewater directly or eventually into the Manila Bay , the DILG shall direct the concerned LGUs to implement the demolition and removal of such structures...”
Matiisin ang mga naninirahan sa mga danger zones. Titiisin nila ang manirahan sa gitna ng panganib sa ngalan ng trabaho, pagkukuhanan ng pera o oportunidad na kumita ng sapat. Pero hindi natin maikakaila ang katotohanan na di-wasto ang pagpapatayo ng pamamahay sa danger zones. Bukod pa sa iligal – delikado ang mga iligalna istruktura hindi lamang sa mga naninirahan kundi, pati na rin sa lahat ng umaasa sa flood control system na kung saan bahagi ang mga estero at iba pang waterways.
The SC goes further, “ Giving urgent dimension to the necessity of removing these illegal structures is Art. 51 of PD 1067 or the Water Code, which prohibits the building of structures within a given length along banks of rivers and other waterways. Art. 51 reads:
“The banks of rivers and streams and the shores of the seas and lakes throughout their entire length and within a zone of three (3) meters in urban areas... No person shall be allowed to stay in this zone longer than what is necessary for recreation, navigation, floatage, fishing or salvage or to build structures of any kind.”
There is some good news amidst all of the urgency to evict informal settlers from waterways. The SC has clarified that even owners of structures designated as nuisances per se or settlers in danger areas deserve notice prior to demolition. The CHR has always maintained that where eviction and demolition is necessary, the minimum standards of due process and human rights must be followed. At the very least, settlers are given 30-days notice.
While the SC has put to task all respondent government agencies to uphold their mandates in relation to the rehabilitation of Manila Bay and the waterways of Manila , we, too, as residents have a contributory responsibility. We have to obey ordinances on garbage management and segregation. We have to obey laws on zoning, environmental management, among others. As for informal settlers, they, too, must carry a burden by obeying the law and those implementing the law. The CHR will do everything to ensure that their evictions are humane, that the local governments can extend at the very least of what is necessary for the dignified eviction of its constituents.
Moreover, it must be stressed that so much which should have been done by local governments throughout Metro Manila to alleviate the hardships of informal settlers had not been done. There is no shortcut to eviction, and even the wrath of Typhoon Ondoy does not divert attention from the past omissions of the local government units. While it is true, unfortunately, that evictions must be carried out expeditiously after notice had been given, following the Supreme Court decision and the subsequent resolution, the local governments absolutely cannot hide from its statutory duties and rely on the MMDA to take unpopular centerstage in demolishing structures.
The UDHA itself and the implementing rules under the DILG place the local governments at the forefront of demolition operations. Local governments must ensure that there is a police presence to maintain order and not cause disorder or aggravate the situation.
City social welfare officers must be mobilized to attend to the immediate needs of the evicted settlers.
All personal belongings must be removed by the residents themselves, otherwise receipts covering property taken must be issued. Custody of personal belongings must be established and secured, else evictions descend to pure thievery. Illegal occupation does not give license to the government to confiscate personal belongings. Everything that can be removed without destroying the same must be removed without injury.
Finally, while relocation is not mandatory when evicting settlers from nuisance structures, it must be noted that the proliferation of settlements along waterways rests heavily on local governments' dereliction of duties, thus temporary shelter must be provided as part of making the evictions humane. Even if the populations living in these illegal settlements are enormous, local governments must still provide equally enormous provisions for temporary relief shelters and stretch their budgets and resources to meet the demands of the eviction operations.
***
We know that at the very bottom of the issue of forced evictions, we are dealing with the desperation of the poorest of the poor and their quavering capability to eke out a living. To demolish their homes delivers a death blow if all duty-bearers do not mobilize to ensure their survival. At the same time, we cannot turn a blind eye and allow them to live in the condition in which they live in, and at the fringes of habitable urban space. To allow their homes to remain standing is our consent to their indignity.
We must not underestimate the will to live. Even if the removal of illegal structures along waterways is inevitable, we do not expect informal settlers to keel over and die. If we do not give them an opportunity to express this will to live in a setting that is both lawful and dignified, they will find a way, with or without our help. My only appeal to informal settler communities and the people who work closely with them, is for them to gather their courage and find the will to live where they and their children are safe from disaster, and secure from eviction. Do not return to the waterways. While we at the Commission will continue to press the government for more housing at reasonable locations, we ask that settlers, too, hand in their contribution and make some sacrifices, what little they may afford, and move to where they are not at the behest of the law.
Everyone must play a part. This is no longer just about our survival. It is the survival of everyone who comes hereafter. The SC levies this heavily on the government, as stated in the decision:
“...in Oposa v. Factoran, Jr. the Court [then] stated that the right to a balanced and healthful ecology need not even be written in the Constitution for it is assumed, like other civil and political rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, to exist from the inception of mankind and it is an issue of transcendental importance with intergenerational implications. Even assuming the absence of a categorical legal provision specifically prodding [the government] to clean up the bay, they and the men and women representing them cannot escape their obligation to future generations of Filipinos to keep the waters of the Manila Bay clean and clear as humanly as possible. Anything less would be a betrayal of the trust reposed in them.”
What the decision implies is that we must all do our share to enable our government to succeed in attaining the standard set by the Supreme Court. And it begins with obeying the law. Life is insuppressible, and we must all find a way to live. However, by the standard set in law and the decision, we must not only foster our own lives, but we must now foster the lives of those that come after us. It will require much sacrifice and dedication on the part of those who live today. But if we want life to remain insuppressible, we must make sure that life in the future is not wholly choked and suppressed by our inaction now.
Maraming salamat po.