The House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading a measure that requires informal settlers to be relocated in or near cities where they reside.

House Bill 5144 or the On-site, In-City, Near-City Resettlement Act will also help ensure that evicted informal settler families (ISFs) become active partners of government in the planning and management of their relocation sites.

Under the measure, affected ISFs  shall organize themselves into a  beneficiary association that will then formulate a “People's Plan” in coordination with the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP).

The “People's Plan,” as stated in HB 5144,  includes a Relocation Action Plan with the assistance of civil society organizations and concerned government agencies. This should contain a site development plan, including non-physical development components, such as self-help housing cooperative, livelihood, self-help development, and capability building mechanisms.

HB 5144 defines 'in-city resettlement' as a relocation site within the jurisdiction of the city where the affected ISFs are living,  while 'near-city' refers to a relocation site in a city other than the city of the affected informal settlements, adjacent to the present settlements of the affected ISFs.

The measure “aims to upgrade informal settlements from areas of abject poverty, social exclusion, unsafe housing, and underdevelopment into communities with enhanced physical living conditions and improved quality of life and which are fully integrated into a city's or an urban area's physical and socioeconomic fabric and urban governance system.”

It  amends Republic Act 7279, as amended, otherwise known as the "Urban Development and House Act of 1992."