Mia was only five years old when her family moved Metro Manila, Philippines, after a devastating storm destroyed her father’s source of livelihood in farming. Mia spent most of her life living in urban informal settlements. Since 2018, however, home for Mia’s family has been a second-story apartment unit in Philippines’ most populous city, Quezon City. In the Bistekville 4 community many were former informal settlers, living along riverbanks, highways or hazardous areas prone to flooding, fires and other disasters. They rallied together to upgrade their homes in-situ and create a thriving community.
Like many rural-urban migrants in the Philippines, Mia’s family moved between couple informal settlements before landing in the settlement that was located on the site of the current Bistekville 4 community. After marriage, Mia and her husband Leo shared living quarters with extended family in a house that had a wooden floor and galvanized iron sheets for its walls.
“The houses stand close to each other, so I always worry that our family might suffer from possible fires and storms. We also did not have our own bathroom; we had to go outside to use a common facility. That was our main problem, not having our own bathroom,” Mia said.
700,000 Filipinos have been forced to move due to extreme weather events in 2021. Storms accounted for over 90% of people who were internally displaced in the Philippines, according to a joint report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center and the Norwegian Refugee Council. About 60% of the Philippine population lives in coastal areas. With the rise in sea level caused by global warming, millions of Filipinos are expected to be internally displaced due to climate change by the end of this century.
Throughout her years of living in informal settlements, Mia, 37, had always lacked adequate access to water and sanitation facilities. She was constantly anxious amid threats of eviction or demolition, fire risks and incidents of crime and illegal activities. Having her own home in the Bistekville 4 community in Quezon City has made a lot of difference. She shared, “I feel safe and secure. I no longer have to worry about fires anymore. We live in a beautiful community that is peaceful with no more fights. We have our own bathroom, our own water line, and our own electricity.”
Mia’s family moved into their own home in Bistekville 4 in December 2018. After five years, she is still amazed at how far her family has come. “Sometimes, at night, we would go outside and look at our house and still not believe it’s finally ours to improve and upgrade as we wished. It feels empowering to have something you really own.”
Launched in 2013, Bistekville 4 was a housing project initiated by the Quezon City government to address the need for adequate housing, particularly among residents of informal settlements, underprivileged groups and homeless people. Toward that end, the local government bought the land where informal settlement residents including Mia’s family were living and the future homeowners would repay for their home and their plot of land through a special financing facility.
Instead of relocation, families who were living on the site that later became Bistekville 4 worked with the Quezon City government and other organizations to redevelop their homes onsite. Jesus, who was president of the Bistekville 4 homeowners association until 2019, was among about 100 community members in the 1980s who organized and registered themselves as a community-based organization known as Metro Heights Compound Residents Association Incorporated. This enabled them to secure land tenure. The association’s leaders formed a negotiating panel that advocated for the local government to legitimize residents’ claim on the land.
The association’s efforts laid the foundation for their eligibility to work with the Quezon City government for in-city upgrading of the site that became the Bistekville 4 project. The community worked with Habitat for Humanity Philippines that provided technical support for the design and construction of the housing units. The residents also learned about financial management and formed a homeowners association to continue advocating for affordable permanent housing for more families.
Jhing, who is currently president of the Homeowners Association in Bistekville 4, shared that the homeowners are expected to follow all guidelines and keep the community clean. The association collects monthly dues from residents that are allocated toward community development such as clean-up drives, health improvement programs for children, seminars on house safety and maintenance, youth engagement with the local parish, and women empowerment and capacity development training sessions. They also make sure that older people are part of community gatherings and consultations. In a recent project, the families in Bistekville 4 pitched in to build a new community chapel. Hearing the news, the local parish donated money to support the construction of the chapel as well as furnishings. Besides mass on Sunday mornings, residents gather at the chapel for community meetings and events. As the homeowners association has a limited budget, the families will touch up paintwork or make repairs to roofing, pipes or roofing particularly during the rainy season.
“Some things cannot be done by one or two people only. To continue our community development, we should act as one — hand-in-hand, together. It is important that members of the community are informed and involved. In the end, it is our responsibility to take care of our community,” said Jhing.
