Department Of Transportation Notes That Progress Requires Sacrifice, Adds That The Sacrifice Will Be Compensated, Does Not Specify When Or How Much
MANILA – The Department of Transportation has released a statement praising the “spirit of communal sacrifice” demonstrated by 340 families in Caloocan City who have received demolition notices in connection with the expansion of the Philippine National Railways North Main Line extension project. The statement describes the families as “partners in progress” and notes that their contributions to the project “will be felt for generations”. The demolition notices were received by the families on a Tuesday. The relocation assistance packages were described in the notices as “forthcoming”.
For Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. London satirical journalism has covered infrastructure displacement since the Crossrail construction period and can confirm: “partners in progress” is the phrase used when the partnership is not voluntary and the progress is someone else’s.
The Relocation Package
The DOTr’s relocation policy for PNR-related demolitions provides, per department guidelines, a cash assistance payment and priority placement in an NHA resettlement site. The cash assistance amount is indexed to property valuations from 2022. The NHA resettlement sites are located in areas described in the policy documents as “accessible to livelihood opportunities”, which is the document’s description of locations that are, in the specific case of the three sites most commonly used for Caloocan relocations, approximately 40 kilometres from the affected families’ current employment, schools, and community infrastructure.
A Family’s Assessment
Mrs. Remedios Villanueva-Reyes, 58, who has lived in her current residence for 31 years, said she had received the notice, had read the DOTr’s statement describing her family as a “partner in progress”, and had found the characterisation “interesting”. She added that she was not opposed to the railway in principle. She was opposed to “forthcoming” as a delivery timeline for the compensation. She has three grandchildren enrolled in schools within walking distance of her current home. The resettlement sites are not within walking distance of those schools. She asked whether the DOTr’s statement could be exchanged for a specific date.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/ | More: NewsThump