In the Philippines and around the world, housing has become the frontline defense against the coronavirus. While the major policy of the country encourages people to stay at home, it runs counter to the fact that many households are driven to homelessness and continue to be threatened by evictions.

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) supports the immediate passage of the recently filed Senate Bill No. 1525 or “Rental Payment and Eviction Moratorium during Disasters and Emergencies Act.”

Although there is an existing temporary prohibition on rental payments under the Bayanihan I and II Acts, the proposed legislation aims to have a permanent policy on moratorium on residential payments and eviction while there is a state of calamity or emergency.

The unprecedented economic impact of the coronavirus has pushed our workers to financial hardships. Tenants struggling to make their rental payments as result of housing markets that are unaffordable, and now job loss and underemployment. Forced evictions in the time of a pandemic—or in any disaster or emergency—is a direct violation of international human rights law especially the right to adequate housing, and can result to more vulnerabilities and irrevocable damages.

The lack of decent and affordable housing continues to force people to live in makeshift dwellings in informal settlements that are typically unsafe and lacking basic services. This makes them more prone to natural and man-made disasters, leading to widespread displacement.

Apart from this welcomed policy, the Commission calls for a more sustainable and permanent action to address the housing issue in the country. The current health crisis highlights the existing gaps in the State’s protection of the right to housing as evident in the rising homelessness and informal settlements in both urban and rural areas, and in the growing impoverished population in the Philippines.

Likewise, in the CHR Position Paper issued on 02 February 2021, on bills establishing a code of conduct for eviction of underprivileged and homeless citizens, demolition of their dwellings, and their resettlement amending for the purpose of R.A. No. 7279, we argue that no evictions shall be done during pandemics such as the Covid-19, as it will further endanger the health of informal settler families who may not be able to find shelters for themselves.

The Commission urges the government to take extraordinary measures to secure the right to housing for all and to protect every Filipino against the pandemic—especially the most vulnerable, marginalised, and disadvantaged.

We also have high hopes with the newly installed Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development in genuinely providing better housing options and services to the people, and to review existing laws and programs that failed in the past in delivering shelters to millions of Filipino families. ###