As fire razed the Baseco slum in the Philippines capital earlier this month leaving at least 20,000 people homeless, community leader Arnold Obina could only shake his head in resignation.
It was the third blaze in recent years to hit the dockside maze of scrap metal sheets, cardboard and plywood, but people always returned to the area to "squat" and wait for state handouts until the next tragedy.
Obina, who heads a civic group representing the poor, says the problem of creeping urban blight and inadequate housing is not unique to Manila, but if left unchecked could strain resources in urban centers.
The government, he says, should focus on spreading economic growth in rural areas to stop urban migration and ease pressure on Manila, now considered a "mega-city" with a population of over 12 million.
"People are looking for basic services -- schools, access to electricity, telecommunications, water, jobs to earn beyond daily subsistence. These are the attractions for rural folk; that's why they flock to urban centers," said Obina, who was once appointed to the state anti-poverty commission.
"Government should move now fast and develop inhabitable areas in the provinces so people won't have to migrate," he said.
Otherwise there will be more Baseco-scale fires "and we will have bigger problems in sustaining resources, in the environment and possibly [lead to] social unrest," he said.
Obina's parents migrated to Manila 30 years ago from the impoverished Bicol region and ended up living in Sauyo, one of the biggest slums in northern Manila where crime is an ever-present threat and every day is a lesson in survival.
And the threat of social unrest is real. Not only have slums given rise to to what Obina calls cases of "out of school youth gangsterism," it has also become a breeding ground for dissatisfied voters ready to go the streets to protest government policies they deem discriminate against the poor.
Obina himself joined a 2001 protest march that forced President Gloria Arroyo to call in the troops to quell the mob.
He blames politicians for spoiling slum dwellers, and making them dependent on handouts and money in exchange for votes instead of promising long-term solutions.
Many slum dwellers do not realize they are a political force, however, and the government only becomes an issue for them if they are aggrieved by certain policies -- like tearing down shantytowns for redevelopment and clearing sidewalks of illegal vendors.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates there are 3.4 million slum dwellers in Manila, or a third of the city population. The Philippines also has one of the highest rates of urbanization in the world, with an annual growth rate of 5.1 percent from 1960 to 1995.
In 1999, the country's urban population was estimated at 38.6 million, or about 52 percent of the total population that year. This is projected to increase to 60 percent by 2010 if no measures were taken to stop migration from rural areas.
Many of the Manila slums are government land, while other squatters prefer to live in dangerous areas like under bridges, beside the railroad tracks or inside abandoned warehouses or shipyards like Baseco.
Michael Lindfield, an ADB housing specialist, says access to land remains a key constraint in providing mass housing for the poor. He said this could be resolved by developing idle land in townships on the edge of the cities.
"We have been looking at this issue in terms of squatting. Yes, we think it's growing, but not very rapidly," Lindfield said.
The squatter problem "causes a huge waste of human and physical resources, sterilizes large amounts of land outside the land market and, through poor environmental conditions, leads to lower productivity and can be the source of pollution and health problems affecting the wider community," he said.
But unlike Obina, Lindfield does not think failure to solve the squatter problem would necessarily lead to violence.
"Squatting is a reflection of failed land markets. The solution is to fix the land markets -- a governance matter, not to blame the squatters," he said.
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