In his recent State of the Nation Address (SONA) President Bongbong Marcos underscored his six-year housing program, the 4PH or Pambansang Pabahay para sa Pilipino. The President hopes to address the 6.5 million houses backlog in the country by constructing one million houses in the next six years. The planned housing program is high rise and is estimated to cost around P3500 to P4000 monthly.

Based on available records, there are at least 4.5 million Filipinos who do not have a house of their own or are considered informal settlers. It is said that at least 3 million of them are staying in Metro Manila trying to earn a living or at the very least hoping for a chance to find something to help them stay alive.

Unfortunately, the said figures may have increased exponentially as the trend in the country’s population has never shown a downslope in the last five decades. Given the harsh economic effects of COVID-19, a good number of people from the provinces would have gone to Metro Manila by now to find their fortunes adding to an already congested metropolis.

While a good housing program is a necessary act of any government, I personally do not see it as a solution to resolve housing backlogs. The problem is not simple one-stop shop concern. It is a complex social issue that does not necessarily make affordability a primary solution. Based on the 4PH blueprint, the government will subsidize the loan interests incurred in applying for a housing loan with the housing arm of the state, thus lowering the possible monthly amortization to at least P3,500 to P4,000 only. The immediate concern is how the target beneficiaries will fund their monthly dues when they do not have a stable and consistent source of monthly or even daily income.

Everything will boil down to poverty and the lack of a sustainable livelihood program to help the homeless poor earn at least if not a decent income. Poverty as we all knew in the country has been addressed through the highly politicized Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps. Politicized in the sense that the identification of the beneficiaries has been marred with politics starting at the barangay level up to the district level. It’s unfortunate that even after several years of its implementation, poverty and self-rated poverty has not gone down to a manageable level. Reported improvements were merely for optics purposes. Sadly, the government has been too excited in publicizing the program’s graduates without regard to the new entrants and those who continuously rely on the monthly dole outs.

Thus, without resolving first poverty or the capacity of the poor to pay for the monthly amortization of their housing loans, 4PH is now doomed to fail even if we will give it a chance to start. The 6.5 million housing backlog may be leveled in the next six years but how about those who will add to the poverty threshold in the next six years. Include corruption opportunities in the construction of the housing units based on what has happened in the past, we can only watch and see how the current administration will fail anew.