The action was eventually successful; after a standoff for some weeks, President Rodrigo Duterte granted the vacant housing units to the group. The earlier incident in Bulacan highlighted some legitimate problems with the government’s socialized housing program. The housing units were unoccupied largely because they were, by any reasonable standard, completely inadequate, almost an insult to the servicemen and women for whom they were intended. There are, as it turns out, about 55,000 unoccupied housing units out of 72,000 built during the Aquino administration, many with the same problems described above. Kadamay has complained that its applications for housing units for its members have not been given priority by the NHA.

Source: Manila Times June 15, 2018 16:41 UTC