00:00 Sir, one of the major components of having smart cities
00:04 is really addressing the quality of life
00:07 of the residents in the area, right, or urban centers.
00:11 And I suppose, and correct me if I'm wrong,
00:14 housing is an important aspect of that.
00:17 - Yes.
00:18 - Can you talk about, you know, the smart cities
00:20 and how it addresses, you know,
00:23 quality of life and affordable, quality housing?
00:26 Is there a convergence there, or are these,
00:29 what is the relationship between this?
00:31 - Well, housing is, of course, one of the major issues,
00:36 or it's actually considered one of the basic needs.
00:41 And it's a major problem in the Philippines,
00:45 as you probably know.
00:46 The housing backlog is at 6.5 million
00:49 and exponentially growing.
00:52 And the problem is that when you talk of housing,
00:58 you cannot disassociate it with land.
01:01 - Okay.
01:02 - Okay?
01:03 Because you need the land where the houses are to be built.
01:05 - Right.
01:06 - Okay?
01:07 And what makes housing unaffordable to many
01:11 is because land is included in the pricing.
01:14 - I see.
01:15 - Okay?
01:16 Now, what if you don't sell the land?
01:19 - I see.
01:20 - Like what we did in Bliss before.
01:23 - Okay.
01:24 - Bliss is long-term lease.
01:25 - Okay.
01:26 - Okay?
01:27 The land, the value of the land is not added
01:30 to the monthly payments of the residents.
01:33 - Okay.
01:34 - So it gives government the flexibility
01:38 of adjusting the monthly payments by the people
01:42 who live in the place.
01:43 - I see.
01:44 - By not inputting the value of land.
01:48 This has been done not only in Bliss,
01:50 but has been done in Valenzuela.
01:53 - Okay.
01:54 - In what is now known or referred to as
01:57 Disciplina Village.
01:58 - Okay.
01:59 - Which was initiated by now Senator Sherwin-
02:03 - I see.
02:04 - And continued on by his brother, Rex.
02:07 - Right.
02:07 - And they've expanded it, they've added more units,
02:10 et cetera.
02:10 I mean, can you imagine?
02:12 They're only charging 300 pesos a month.
02:14 - Wow.
02:15 - Per unit.
02:16 - Wow.
02:17 - Because they did not input the value of the land
02:21 to the monthly payments of the residents.
02:23 - Okay.
02:24 - And the monthly payments of the beneficiaries.
02:26 - I see.
02:27 - Now, how does Smart Cities or Smart City technology
02:31 help in this?
02:32 Okay.
02:33 Monitoring who needs housing.
02:37 Okay.
02:38 There is a, we need to do a socioeconomic survey
02:43 of who are the residents who are really in need of housing.
02:47 - I see.
02:47 - Okay, because if you don't have the kind of
02:50 systematic database, it's so easy for anybody to say,
02:55 you know, I need housing.
02:56 But, you know, you need to check it.
02:59 And before it used to be done manually.
03:02 - Okay.
03:03 - Now, it can be done using drones, for example.
03:06 You can check on blighted areas, on slum areas.
03:11 And also you can check on, you know,
03:14 if you're going to build new buildings,
03:15 you want to make sure it will not be on flood prone areas.
03:19 Or disaster prone areas.
03:21 So, the use of Smart City technology can assist a lot.
03:26 Also in identifying where are the lands that are available.
03:32 - I see.
03:32 - Where you can build housing.
03:34 Which are near to jobs.
03:36 - Right.
03:37 - So that kind of a correlation.
03:38 Because the problem with the housing program in the past,
03:43 the relocation to Cavite, to Montalban, et cetera.
03:48 I mean, these are places that are too far
03:51 from where employment and livelihood opportunities are.
03:55 That's why people don't like going to these places.
03:58 - Right.
03:59 - And that's why you had that Kadamay problem of the people.
04:04 - Right, appropriating.
04:06 - Yes.
04:06 - So, you know, the use of Smart City technology
04:11 could assist and facilitate the proper kind of an approach
04:18 to the problem.
04:19 - That's so interesting.
04:20 Because, you know, I mean,
04:21 there's a Smart City component of it.
04:23 But there's also just basic policy making.
04:27 You mentioned, you know, do you sell it, do you rent it?
04:30 I mean, that doesn't require technology.
04:33 - That's right.
04:34 - And I was wondering, you know,
04:35 you mentioned the informal settlers.
04:37 But even middle income people living
04:40 or working in the metro area.
04:42 Because I guess land is so expensive
04:46 within the metropolitan area.
04:48 They go to maybe Bulacan or Cavite, Laguna.
04:52 But, you know, this becomes expensive,
04:55 especially when you have skyways or tollways
04:59 that, you know, seem to, I don't know,
05:01 discourage you from living far away.
05:05 Because there's a transportation cost now
05:07 just to go back to...
05:09 Where do we go wrong?
05:13 I mean...
05:14 - Well, you probably have heard of the 15-minute city.
05:19 - Okay, yes.
05:21 - This is something that was initiated in Paris
05:26 by Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris,
05:30 where she adopted this policy
05:32 that you can access the essential services
05:36 that each household needs within a 15-minute walk,
05:41 bicycle ride, or public transport.
05:43 Okay, it's become quite popular among architects.
05:50 And in fact, even now, some mayors talk about it.
05:54 And they want to adopt the system.
05:57 But this is not really new.
05:59 In urban planning, the idea of a neighborhood
06:05 that's complete, that provides the essential services
06:09 that a household needs, it's an old idea, okay?
06:14 And there has been a number of books
06:19 that have written about it.
06:21 And the thing is, you need to relate transport
06:26 with land use, okay?
06:29 So housing or residential development
06:32 is one of the land uses that you need to incorporate.
06:36 Now, we are building the North-South Commuter Railway, okay?
06:41 And phase one is going to open soon, okay?
06:46 Between Clark and Divisoria,
06:49 there are something like 20 stations, okay?
06:52 Now, you can imagine, if we had affordable housing
06:56 in each of these stations,
06:59 someone, a vendor in Divisoria can live in Malolos,
07:04 where it's cheaper to own a unit,
07:06 rather than some crowded, little, dingy place in Divisoria,
07:11 and be in Divisoria in 25 minutes.
07:15 So there are these opportunities that are coming up,
07:19 which we need to take advantage of.
07:23 So I understand that the DOTR has been promoting
07:28 the concept of transit-oriented development, or TOD.
07:33 - Okay.
07:34 - Which blends transport, public transport, with land use.
07:39 - I see.
07:39 - And a more efficient use of the land.
07:42 Now, the challenge is being able to put in affordable
07:46 housing within a walking distance of the station.
07:50 Because the word has already gone out
07:54 that this commuter train is going to start operating soon.
07:59 The land values have gone up.
08:00 - Okay, and speculators now buying it.
08:01 - Speculators have come in, and so the land values
08:04 have gone up.
08:05 Now, whether it is still affordable to put up housing,
08:09 it's now a big question mark.
08:11 - Right.
08:12 - So government needs to move fast if it wants to really
08:16 be able to use that opportunity to build affordable housing.
08:20 - Do you think there's still a chance for an urban area
08:25 like Metro Manila to do these things that we're talking
08:30 about, or should we start over?
08:33 I mean, you mentioned Clark.
08:35 I mean, the private sector is looking at township
08:37 developments outside, which would have that 15-minute
08:42 walking feature to it.
08:45 Is that the solution, or you still have hope
08:49 for Metro Manila?
08:50 - Well, I think it can be done.
08:52 It might be difficult in certain areas, but I think
08:56 it can be done, because a city is an ever, you know,
09:00 it's a dynamic place.
09:02 - I see.
09:03 - There are new opportunities that come up.
09:05 - Right.
09:06 - And there is such a thing as urban redevelopment.
09:11 - I see.
09:12 - Because for whatever reason, certain parts of the city
09:15 deteriorates, okay?
09:17 - Okay.
09:18 - And that's why there is such a thing.
09:21 - It's natural, yeah.
09:22 - It's natural.
09:22 - Yeah.
09:23 - And that's why there is such a thing as, you know,
09:25 like a human body, you know, you discover some part
09:30 of your body needs something, so you take some vitamins
09:34 to do something about that problem.
09:37 So similarly, in a city, when a particular district
09:41 deteriorates and the revenue, the quality of life
09:44 in that place goes down, it requires a redevelopment effort.
09:49 - I see.
09:50 - A revitalization effort.
09:51 - Does that apply also to what we started with,
09:54 housing, is that something that, is that a lost cause?
09:57 - Well, you know, when you want to generate
10:02 better business, retail in a particular place,
10:08 there is no substitute.
10:10 You need to have residential development.
10:12 - I see.
10:13 - Because that's what's going to populate,
10:15 and you'll have a 24/7 kind of a market
10:19 for whatever retail facilities you put in.
10:22 So it cannot just be totally retail.
10:24 - Right, right.
10:25 - You have to have residential development as well.
10:29 So the thing is, it requires a certain degree of,
10:34 I guess, political will is the term for it.
10:38 - Sure.
10:38 - Because, you know, it's always difficult
10:43 to introduce something new when people get used
10:46 to the way certain things are done,
10:49 and the way certain things are.
10:51 - Sure.
10:52 - And so when you want to modernize,
10:54 there is a tendency to resist that kind of a,
10:58 you know, like for example,
11:00 you want to build affordable housing,
11:03 but you don't have government-owned land.
11:06 - Okay.
11:07 - So what do you do?
11:07 But a local government may own a public market.
11:13 - I see.
11:14 - And the public market is only one floor.
11:16 What do you do with the--
11:17 - With the rest of the vertical space.
11:20 - Vertical space.
11:22 So you can actually build a multi-story building
11:25 with a public market on the ground floor,
11:27 and use the upper floors for your housing, okay?
11:31 So now, whether that's being done,
11:35 it requires a little bit of, I guess,
11:37 creativity on the part of the local leaders
11:40 to go into that kind of a thing.
11:44 Because once you start talking to the market vendors
11:49 about redeveloping the market,
11:51 immediately it becomes a sensitive topic,
11:55 because they don't want to lose the space
11:57 that they already have.
11:58 - Sure.
11:59 - But very often also,
12:01 you get into the problem of corruption.
12:04 - Right.
12:05 - Because public markets are notorious
12:07 for having tenants who are not present in the place.
12:12 - And I guess that's where digital applications will help.
12:17 - That's right.
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