HUNDREDS of members of the urban poor groups Kadamay and Montalban Homeless Alliance (MHA) already left the AFP/PNP housing site in Rodriguez, Rizal that they stormed Wednesday when Special Action Forces (SAF) police officers arrived Friday afternoon to confront them.
The deployment of the SAF platoon composed of 40 officers followed hours after President Rodrigo Duterte warned Kadamay members not to occupy vacant houses at the La Solidaridad-Avilon Zoo housing site in Barangay San Isidro or he would be forced to order the SAF to remove them. Duterte gave the occupiers until noon Friday to leave the site.
However, the Kadamay and MHA members left Wednesday afternoon after a standoff with homeowners of the housing site and police, according to Kadamay leader Gloria Arellano.
The SAF platoon will stay at the site to guard against trespassing by occupiers.
Arellano denied they wanted to occupy some vacant 700 houses at the site reserved for AFP and PNP beneficiaries. She claimed the homeless families who went there were applicants for housing and just wanted not to lose units to beneficiaries who were allegedly prioritized by the National Housing Authority (NHA).
Arellano also said some of the vacant houses were occupied because they just took cover from the rain.
Kadamay and MHA demanded that the NHA prioritized their housing applications which they claimed have been pending for so long.
In March last year, more than 5,200 vacant housing units in NHA resettlement sites in Pandi, Bulacan were occupied by Kadamay members. Duterte allowed the occupiers to stay in the vacant houses intended for families of uniformed personnel, who reportedly did not moved in because the units were too small for them.
Duterte said he would just transfer the original housing beneficiaries to other resettlement sites with bigger-sized houses.
