Monday, July 11, 2011

Binay to use PAG-IBIG funds for localized housing projects

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, July 9, 2011 (PIA) –-THERE is money that can be used to fill in the country’s need for decent homes to its people, but it has not been used.

This has been revealed by Erwin Maceda, Vice President Jejomar Binay’s political officer who, in a chance interview said the money however is sleeping on the bank.

With the Vice President is now heading the country’s Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), we now have PAG-IBIG as our lead agency, who has around P50 billion, sleeping in the bank.

Binay, who has shown what taking intelligent risks would bring while heading Makati City, accordingly planned to use the P50 billion annually to build houses as projects of local government units.

“There is money and it is not being used properly,” added Maceda, who flew in to Bohol as advance party for the vice president Binay, who has been invited to grace important affairs in at least two towns and Tagbilaran City here.

We would push PAG-IBIG to spend the P50 billion this year on housing and another P50 billion the following year on the principle that we have money that is lying idle and a worsening housing backlog that is not yet effectively addressed.

That is also a principle that the vice president has tested when he was still the city mayor of Makati, said Henry Caunan, another VP Binay political officer.

When he assumed Makati, the city had P300 million assets and P340 million in liabilities. After his three terms, Makati’s wealth surged to P11 billion, accumulating more than enough funds to finance its socialized charities, education and medical programs.

Makati reportedly has P11 billion, without need of paving more roads, putting up hospitals and other major infrastructure and have supported schools.

According to sources, Makati has a one student to a computer ratio, offers free school uniforms and potable purified water to students. 

We would not have earned that much had we not used the money that was there, but was not properly used, Maceda said.

“Here is a man who is not afraid to think outside the box,” Danao Bohol Mayor Thomas Louis Gonzaga pointed out, meaning the Makati executive who has risen to the country’s second top post as vice president.

And he has no qualms about being with the ordinary people, Caunan added, pointing that the vice president travels by economy class.

To illustrate his point, Caunan said Binay visited public markets in Cogon, Dao, met with mayors and friends and brushed elbows with Danao and Bien Unido local officials in his two day stint in Bohol.  

And he just came from 29 individual wake visits to flood victims in Davao, a feat that is unheard of knowing the serious logistics, mobility and security issues inherent to a moving “spare tire” but on mag wheels, jokes Erwin Maceda, the veeps political analyst and advance party. (Rey Anthony Chiu)

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