Civil society participation in city governance in Cebu City

Environment and Urbanization

Volumn 12, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 57-72

  Etemadi, Felisa U ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES   (Philippines)

^b NONE   (Philippines)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CIVIL SOCIETY; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; INFORMAL SETTLEMENT; NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION; PARTNERSHIP APPROACH;

CEBU CITY; PHILIPPINES;

EID: 0034070623     PISSN: 09562478     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/095624780001200105     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. This is a summary of one of nine city case studies prepared as part of a research programme on Urban Governance, Partnerships and Poverty, funded by the UK Department for International Development's ESCOR programme. This involved research teams in each of the cities and a coalition of UK based research groups from the University of Birmingham, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the University of Wales, Cardiff, and the London School of Economics. Summaries of other city case studies also feature in this edition of Environment and Urbanization. The full version of this and other city case studies, and of theme papers, may be obtained from the Publications Office, School of Public Policy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT,UK; tel: (44) 121 414 5020; fax: (44) 121 414 4969; e-mail to: u.grant@bham.ac.uk. City case studies cost UK £10 each (including postage) but are free to NGOs and teaching institutions in non-OECD countries.
2. Etemadi, Felisa U (1997), "Urban governance and poverty alleviation: the Cebu City experience" in Porio, Emma (editor), Urban Governance and Poverty Alleviation in Southeast Asia: Trends and Prospects, Global Urban Research Initiative (GURI) in Southeast Asia, Ateneo de Manila, Quezon City.
3. During special events, major roads are closed to public utility vehicles and jeepneys (similar to minibuses) but not to private cars. Urban poor groups have argued, first, that private cars make a greater contribution to congestion and, second, that public transport serves all income groups, particularly the poor.
4. There are also elections for 16 councillors to the city council, and officials at barangay level. Elected officials at the barangay level include the barangay captain and seven barangay councillors.
5. This coalition was called the Kaabag sa Sugbu. The party-list system is the mechanism for proportional representation in the House of Representatives of marginalized and under-represented sectors, through elections. These sectors include urban poor, labour, peasant and indigenous culture communities; the elderly, handicapped, women, youth, overseas workers, fisherfolk, veterans and professionals. Twenty per cent of the seats in the House of Representatives are allocated for sectoral representatives; a qualified party gets a seat provided it garners 2 per cent of the votes in the party-list system. It was implemented in elections to local councils at the city and municipality levels.
6. Members of the Cebu City NGO coalition Kaabag sa Sugbu, representing different areas of work (women, women and children, labour, cooperatives etc.) met prior to the Congress to identify the concerns and needs which they wished electoral candidates to address.
7. Mojares, Resil (1994), "The politics of decentralization: the case of the local development council", (draft) paper presented at the Centre for Local Governance, Regional Conference (Region 7), USC Retreat House, Talamban, Cebu City.
8. The Urban Basic Services Programme covers 26 urban poor barangays. Because of the difficulty in obtaining barangay-specific indicators (e.g., income, mortality, nutrition), the only criterion used by the programme in the selection was the presence of non-government organizations in the area. It was assumed that the NGOs tend to deliver social services in localities where they are needed most.
9. Social housing, called socialized housing in the Philippines, refers to housing programmes and projects undertaken by the public or private sector for "underprivileged and homeless citizens", defined in the 1992 Urban Development and Housing Act as households not owning legal housing or which are poor. Eligible households are registered by the city government. Programmes include houses and lots, serviced lois, long-term finance and subsidized interest rates.
10. The Community Mortgage Programme aims to secure land tenure for the landless poor by giving financial assistance to residents of "blighted/depressed" areas (slums and squatter settlements) or areas required for priority developments, to allow them to own the lot they occupy or the land where they can resettle. Residents have to form homeowner associations which coincide with all or part of a "slum" or squatter settlement and these vary in size from five to 1,000 or more households.
11. The medium-rise building (MRB) initiative has been criticized for technical lapses, lack of feasibility study and for not benefiting the intended beneficiaries. The urban poor find the MRB concept unacceptable for the following reasons: owning a unit is not the same as owning the land since land appreciates whilst the unit depreciates; although they are now city dwellers, most prefer an individual house and lot, regardless of size, so that they can raise hogs and chickens in the backyard; management and maintenance of common areas is difficult; and many of the original urban poor beneficiaries backed out saying that they could afford neither the P 20,000 equity (initial payment) nor the monthly loan repayments of P 1,600 for the cheapest flats.
12. Campos, Christine (1999), "Tripartite body to oversee needs of urban poor" in Sun Star Daily, Cebu City, 18 March.
13. The municipal trial court issues court orders for the demolition and eviction of illegal developments on privately owned land. Under the 1992 Urban Development and Housing Act, the local government unit is required to provide a serviced site to which those affected can be relocated. Because of this requirement, the city can appeal to the regional trial court for a restraining order while arrangements are made for the resettlement. However, better liaison between the municipal trial court and the city is needed, to ensure the court informs the city of impending cases early in the proceedings.
14. Urban Basic Services Programme (1994), Terminal Implementation Report (1988-1993), Cebu City. With the satisfactory review of the terminal implementation report in 1993, all the programmes and activities of the Urban Basic Services Programme continued under the Fourth Country Programme (1994-1998). A Metro Cebu approach expanded coverage to two other cities, Mandaue and Lapulapu. Cebu City is one of two cities in the Philippines included in the Fifth Country Programme, which focuses on the promotion of child friendly services and assistance to children in the street and labour sectors. The Urban Basic Services Programme meets occasionally as an ad hoc body but the partner NGOs continue to implement their respective programmes.
15. The Pagtambayayong Foundation works closely with the Division for the Welfare of the Urban Poor in organizing community associations, in the management of the Community Mortgage Programme and of the relocation programme of the city, including the collection of loan repayments in the slum improvement and resettlement sites.
16. Division for the Welfare of the Urban Poor (1998), City Housing Project Accomplishment Report (1995-1997), DWUP, Cebu City.
17. The total cost of all Cebu City low-cost housing projects, including social housing, amounted to P534.1 million. Monthly amortization payments are less than 1 per cent of the total loan amount of P 440 million. In Community Mortgage Programme areas, the loan exposure is about P 40 million with a reported average collection efficiency rate of over 50 per cent (although this has not been verified with the city treasurer).
18. Cebu City Task Force on Street Children (1998), Programs and Services Accomplishment Report (1990-1998), CCTFSC, Cebu City.
19. Lihok Pilipina Foundation (1998), Cases of Domestic Violence Report (1991-1998), Lihok Pilipina-Women Crisis Center, Cebu City.
20. These are the Bidlisiw Foundation, FORGE, Free Legal Assistance Volunteers Association Inc. (Free LAVA) and the University of Southern Philippines Foundation.
21. The selected urban barangays indude the Urban Basic Services Programme barangays and those with the greatest number of informal settlements. These represent the "poor" barangays for comparative purposes only, while the other barangays represent the "not poor" ones. This categorization is, however, relative considering that not all households in "poor" baranguays are poor; in the same manner, not all households in "not poor" barangays are better off.
22. Fernandez, Nacario-Ramos and Felisa Etemadi (1998), "Renters in low-income communities in Cebu City", Urban Research Consortium (Visayas).
23. David, C C, AB Inocencio, F M Largo and E L Walag (1998), "The case for policy and institutional reforms in Metro Cebu", paper presented at the Workshop on Urban Water Issues in Metro Cebu, Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc., Cebu City.
24. Largo, F M et al. (1998), "Understanding household water demand for Metro Cebu", paper presented at the Workshop on Urban Water Issues in Metro Cebu, Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc., Cebu City.
25. See reference 23.
26. See reference 23.