Kaya lang ang paghahanap ng bahay sa ilalim ng programa ng pamahalaan ay para ka ring tumataya sa loterya. Masuwerte kami noong panahon ni Presidente Magsaysay, sapagka't nataon sa panunungkulan ng isang Presidenteng ang puso ay nakalaan sa mahihirap at ang PHHC ay pinamamahalaan ng mga dakilang tao na katulad ni Vicente Orosa. At ngayon ay maraming umaasa kay Pangulong Estrada, dahil sa isa ring pusong maka-mahirap ito. At ang kanyang inihaharap sa bayan ay hindi lang para sa isa o dalawang kawanggawa kung isang buong palatuntunan upang malutas ang nakahahambal na kakapusan ng tahanan sa ating bansa. I think the government and your own organization have come up with a daunting figure: we need to fill a housing backlog of at least 3.7 million units.

President Estrada has adopted CREBA's own vision of a masterful housing program in the next few years by optimizing the cooperation between the government and the private sector. After all, the 1987 Constitution provides: "The State shall, by law, and for the common good, undertake, in cooperation with the private sector, a continuing program of urban land reform and housing which will make available at affordable cost decent housing and basic services to underprivileged and homeless citizens in urban centers and resettlement areas. . . ." (Section 9, Article XIII).

To consolidate and strengthen a wide variety of services under the heading of housing, the Senate committee on urban planning, housing and development has come up with Senate Bill 1038, which creates a Department of Housing. As Senator Biazon puts it in his explanatory note, the proposed Department of Housing shall serve as "the primary policy planning, programming, coordinating, implementing regulating and administrative entity of the Executive Branch of the Government to promote, develop and regulate dependable networks of urban planning and resettlement networks of housing, urban planning and resettlement programs and projects."

The Biazon-Drilon bill moreover states that this department is envisioned to be the "one-stop shop" for the homeless, the primary government entity which the homeless can expect to help facilitate, expedite and make available affordable housing projects and loans that are designed primarily for their benefit."

I have asked President Estrada to certify to the urgency of this bill and the President agreed. It is my projection as Senate President that the Department of Housing Bill will pass the Senate before Congress declares its Lenten recess on April 16. Allowing for a bicameral conference committee, I hope the Senate and the House will be able to ratify the Conference committee reports before April 16 so that the President can sign the enrolled bill into law before the Congress adjourns sine die on June 8.

I was the Secretary of Labor who launched the overseas employment program in 1974, a program that opened up an estimated four million jobs overseas to our Filipino workers, many of them displaced from their jobs by the first energy crisis of 1973. That's why I know that this vast outflow of Filipino workers was motivated by three humble dreams: first, to build a decent roof over their heads, second to send their children to college, and third, to amass a modest capital to start a little business of their own.

Subsequent research has revealed that a new house arises in our countryside for two reasons: a family member has remitted inward an income above subsistence, meaning, a disposable income, that goes into the building of a home, or irrigation has arrived to double the income of the farmer.

The bulk of housing therefore still occurs outside the legal framework of government assistance, coming from workers empowered by higher earnings and farmers empowered by higher incomes because of irrigation. We have not tracked all instances but many workers send home not only money in remittances to their families, but also collective sums to build a chapel or a church, such as the workers of Barangay Pulong Masle in Guagua, Pampanga. Their donation has erected a fine chapel to their community back home, a monument to their spiritual concern.

Housing is therefore mainly still a function of workers and farmers empowered by higher incomes and favorable economic conditions, occurring outside the framework of government subsidies or assistance. When workers are jobless, they will not be empowered to build a house. Where farmers earn just the littlest pittance from unirrigated rice fields, just equal to their production cost, they will never be empowered to build a house. With improved economic conditions and a rational governmental housing policy, we can look forward to many more genuine achievements in the field of mass housing under a Department of Housing that consolidates all government efforts in this field.

Fortunately, housing itself is a motor of economic growth and social development. There is no better catalyst for economic dynamism or pump-priming than mass housing. A government study has shown that housing has the highest multiplier effect, by a factor of 16 plus and that it creates many jobs both within the industry and other supporting industries.

I belong to a generation that has been around for almost a century now - long enough to observe landmark changes in the social and economic scene. And I have traveled many times up and down the country. I vividly remember that in my earliest years as a growing boy in Bulacan, at the first sight of a coming storm we frantically looked for sturdy bamboo poles to prop up our humble nipa house. Today, throughout Central Luzon, the Southern Tagalog region and the national capital region typhoons no longer hold such terrors for the ordinary household because their houses may still be on stilts but it now rests on pillars with a concrete base. To the contrary, when I passed by the town of Basey, Samar, just after a typhoon, most of the nipa houses in the typhoon's path were blown down. It seems the technology of a simple concrete base to a house had not yet arrived in that community. This reminds us that the human habitat began as a shelter against the elements such as wind and rain, gradually evolving through the centuries into planned cities and showcases of human civilization and social progress.

I have mentioned the revolutionary impact of having a nipa house rest on a concrete base. That is how we have tamed the elements in the more advanced regions of our country. Why shouldn't Samar emulate Bulacan or Pampanga and start cementing the base of the bamboo or wooden pillars of their houses? The innovation costs very little, but the saving grace of the little cement is amazing. I think the CREBA regional chapters ought to mind little things like this with a revolutionary impact on the lives of our people.

I wish to call your attention to two other policy voids in housing which CREBA should address in the future.

The first has to do with the land supply. I have already mentioned the successful housing projects of the Magsaysay era. Project 6 is probably the acme of government housing, decent and affordable. But that was because government land was still plentiful at that time. I know that many factors influence the prices of housing, but perhaps the single biggest determinant is the price of land. Public intervention to reduce the cost of housing and make it affordable will have to take the form of conserving or impounding land for low-cost housing. The prices of land in the National Capital Region for example will never permit significant housing for the poor in the congested conditions and sky-high prices in the metropolis. But the frontiers of the metropolitan area are expanding all the time to Laguna, Cavite, Rizal, Bulacan, Pampanga, Bataan, Batangas, Tarlac and Nueva Ecija - and the public lands for housing are rapidly disappearing in these areas. The latest targets of land speculators are Remedios Trinidad in Bulacan and the lands around the Zambales mountains. Since the factor of land cost is the key factor in affordable housing, shouldn't the government take steps to conserve the available disposable land for housing in the areas close to Metro Manila instead of abdicating this function to the land speculators alone?

Another policy void that should be discussed is the matter of rental housing. Never mind that we are all obsessed with home ownership as the ideal state. But the painful truth is that the bulk of our countrymen are still not yet homeowners but renters. When did we last check on their condition and welfare?

The bulk of our workers are still renting their dwelling places, usually in the urban slums close to their places of work, very often in subhuman conditions at outrageous prices. Should not a commensurate effort be put into the improvement of rental housing even as we frontally address the problems of the homeowning class? I submit that this is a necessary and potentially fruitful area of debate for CREBA and the housing sector of the government.

These are some of the less understood policy issues that a Department of Housing should immediately address. But it is not too soon to ask CREBA, with its expertise and demonstrated social conscience, to begin looking into these policy gaps so that we can prepare an adequate response.

In the Senate, we know that your organization, the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Associations, Inc. is rendering an indispensable service to the housing needs of our countrymen. We know of your self-effacing efforts to generate fair and effective laws and rules to keep your community engaged in this invaluable task, and in our Senate hearings we have benefited from the experience and expertise of your leaders and members. With the forthcoming approval of the bill creating a Department of Housing, your sector will be represented at the Cabinet level of decision-making.

For this reason, I'd like to urge CREBA to help President Estrada find a top professional to head the Housing Department. Certainly the search for the first housing minister should not be confined to a radius of a dozen yards from the center of Malacanang. The President, with the help of CREBA, should cast a wide net.

I think the CREBA is defining the optimum relationship between the government and the private sector for the pursuit of the general welfare. I wish you continuing success in this noble task that unites you with our government and other forces of change in our democratic society.

Congratulations.