The Philippines has millions in housing backlog. Based on government data, the country has a total housing need of 6,796,910 units. Without proper budgetary intervention, it could swell to 22 million units by 2040.

According to the Subdivision and Housing Developers Association, a group of industry-leading market developers, the government needs support from all of its agencies and the private sector to close the housing gap.

In an interview on Gising Na, a multi-platform show of the Daily Tribune, SHDA executive director Sonny Ducay said the group has been consulting with the National Housing Authority about concerns in the housing industry.

"We discuss things about the concerns in the housing industry. The secretary presented the government's ambitious plan to provide some six million housing units within the next six years. This requires the participation of all government agencies and housing developers," Ducay said.

"We need to address the housing backlog of approximately some 6.5 million units and this cannot be done by the government alone — we need the participation of everyone," he added.

Planning next steps

Citing government data, Ducay said about 3.7 million families need decent shelter. Thus, the SHDA aims to help provide inclusive housing that even the bottom 30 percent of income households can soon afford.

Likewise, he proposed that the government allot subsidies for housing to make it more affordable.

"There are many ongoing discussions including the provision of subsidies from the government and streamlining data registry to identified qualified beneficiaries," Ducay said.

"There are also talks on tapping idle government properties that can be utilized by developers and then administered by the local government units identified beneficiaries could be informal settlers," he added.

Government support

Meanwhile, the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) 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 from 5 to 6 October at the Grand Hyatt Manila, Taguig City.

In his keynote speech, Housing Secretary 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 backlogs 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 (SHDA), 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 one percent to make the units affordable to low-income beneficiaries.

New generation of housing luminaries

Aside from Secretary 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 includes Jacinto Ng, group executive officer of the Joy Nostalg Group; Jose Franco Soberano, COO of Cebu Landmasters, Inc.; Julius Guevarra, corporate planning head of DM Wenceslao and Associate Inc.; Ricardo Lagdameo, president of Damosa Land; Jose Marco Antonio, president and CEO of Century Properties Group, Inc; and Gabriel 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 relayed these growth stories and the factors that allowed them to break through to their current level of success.

With additional report by Maria Romero