Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development Secretary Jose Acuzar discussed the details of the Marcos administration's plans for the housing industry on the first day of the 30th National Developers Convention, held 5-6 October, at the Grand Hyatt Manila, Taguig City.

In his keynote speech, Acuzar introduced the "Pambansang Pabahay Para sa Pilipino Program," a directive from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. that aims to construct a projected one million houses per year in select areas in the country to address the 6.5 million housing backlog and the two major bottlenecks of affordability and access to funds for housing.

The two-day convention, annually organized by the Subdivision and Housing Developers Association in partnership with the DHSUD, gathered more than 300 housing sector stakeholders who will be key players in the new administration's ambitious, affordable, and inclusive national housing program.

"This will mean huge things for housing developers and new areas of synergy between the private sector, the national government, local government units, and local communities," said SHDA President May Rodriguez, expressing full support for the program.

Through the housing program, partner LGUs may also provide flexible financing options alongside a preferential interest rate of only 1 percent to make the units affordable to low-income beneficiaries.

New housing luminaries 

Aside from Acuzar, second-generation property developers delivered their resource speeches to inspire the audience to modernize the way they do their businesses.

The roster of the young and dynamic affordable housing leaders who served as the event's resource speakers included Jacinto Ng, Group Executive Officer of the Joy Nostalg Group; Jose Franco B. Soberano, COO of Cebu Landmasters Inc.; Julius Guevarra, Corporate Planning Head of DM Wenceslao and Associates Inc.; Ricardo Lagdameo, President of Damosa Land; Jose Marco Antonio, President and CEO of Century Properties Group Inc; and Gabriel D. Laurel, Strategy Head for the Property Company of Friends (Pro-friends).

Soberano, Ng, and Guevarra have all been pivotal in their respective companies' explosive growth. In the plenary session "From Good to Great: Insights from Real Estate Developers that Made the Leap," they shared their growth stories and the factors that allowed them to break through to their current level of success.