SHFC, PCUP forge pact

The Social Housing Finance Corporation (SHFC) marked the 38th anniversary of the Community Mortgage Program (CMP) on Monday by signing a partnership with the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) and awarding land titles to beneficiaries, reinforcing the government’s push to expand community-driven housing.

The memorandum of understanding, signed in Makati City by SHFC president and CEO Federico Laxa and PCUP chairperson and CEO Undersecretary Michelle Anne Gonzales, integrates PCUP’s ALPAS Komunidad Prowgram with SHFC’s housing initiatives.

The partnership seeks to strengthen community organizing, technical assistance, project development, and access to socialized housing for organized urban poor communities under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s Expanded Pambansang Pabahay para sa Pilipino (4PH) Program, led by the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development.

Laxa said the partnership would help revitalize the Enhanced Community Mortgage Program and make it more responsive to the needs of organized communities. “We thank PCUP for partnering with us to further improve the benefits we provide to our fellow Filipinos,” he said. Gonzales, meanwhile, pledged PCUP’s full support for the initiative, saying the agency would help empower communities that will benefit from the government’s housing projects.

As part of the anniversary celebration themed “Bahay, Buhay, Magandang Kinabukasan,” SHFC awarded Transfer Certificates of Title to 20 beneficiaries from three CMP communities in Valenzuela and Caloocan. Speaking for the recipients, Samahang Mapalad ng Amparo Homeowners Association president Carmelita Malinao thanked SHFC for helping residents secure their own homes.

“We are grateful to SHFC because we now have homes of our own. We are no longer renting, and this land now belongs to us,” she said. Since its launch in 1988, the Community Mortgage Program has provided security of tenure to more than 300,000 families nationwide.