The militant Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) condemned the Arroyo government for allowing the onerous mega-sale of 14 billion pesos worth of some 53,000 low cost housing units nationwide to the private Balikatan Housing Finance, Inc.
The sale smacks of capitalist greed at the expense of thousands of urban poor professionals and other low-income earners who will be displaced and evicted once rash foreclosure proceeding shall have been started.
Balikatan, in collusion with the inutile agencies of the Arroyo bureaucracy, is victimizing thousands of urban poor homeowners who are mostly lowly government and private employees and who receive meager wages.
Urban poor occupants of low-cost housing units shall be forced to pay 25 percent of the total cost of outstanding loan or the full amount of their arrearages within three months, a condition that even US banks and other corporations now reeling from the impact of the global financial crisis could not even accomplish. Worse, outstanding loans of homeowners shall be eventually reappraised to as much as 300 percent of the original loan amount.
It is ironic how imperialist nations led by US are fast to bail-out banks by dishing out billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, in contrast to how private financing corporations like Balikatan enjoy dictating the lives of urban poor homeowners by forcing them to agree to the onerous conditions of the new loan terms..
Kadamay joins the Davao City Federations of Homeowners’ Association (DCFHA) in its struggle for decent and affordable housing adding that it can only be won through collective action and militancy.
Subdivisions in Davao City , which had units transferred to the ownership of Balikatan Housing Financial Incorporated, are in San Lorenzo Village , El Rio, Rosalina, Kadayawan and Country Homes.
The Balikatan is a special purpose company jointly owned by the NHMFC (49 percent share) and the Deutsche Bank Global Opportunities (51 percent). Asian Development Bank lent 1.6 billion pesos to set up Balikatan. BHFI engaged Bahay Financial Services (BFS), an asset management and loan company, to implement its mortgage servicing activities.#
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Poverty
