Capítulo 2. Trabajos Relacionados
2.3. Principales arquitecturas multirrobot
Formulating a national informal settlements upgrading strategy requires, first and foremost, a thorough understanding of the current conditions, issues, opportunities, and risks affecting informal settlements and settlers in the Philippines. This section provides an assessment of informal settlements in the Philippines—describing their evolution over the years, the scale and magnitude of the problem, and how they came about as a result of accelerated economic development and rapid urbanization. This section also provides a characterization of informal settlements in the Philippines, how they relate to urban poverty, where they are located, and how classifying them facilitates planning for appropriate interventions.
3.1
The Evolution of Informal Settlements in the Philippines
Informal settlement is the generic term used for areas inhabited by millions of urban poor in the developing world as a result of industrialization and rapid urbanization. The name implies that these settlements subsist outside the existing and legal regulatory framework. Due to their inherent "non-legal" status, informal settlements lack adequate services and infrastructure. An often used name for informal settlements is slum settlements. Slums are residential areas that are physically and socially deteriorated, making a decent quality of life impossible. Hence, many distinguish a slum settlement as referring to the condition of a settlement, while an informal settlement refers to the legal position of the settlement. For the purpose of this study, the UN-Habitat definition of informal settlements as areas where groups of housing units have been constructed on land that the occupants have no legal claim to and where housing is not in compliance with current planning and building regulations to enable a decently quality of life will be used. In essence, the UN-Habitat defines informal settlements as households that cannot provide one of the following basic living characteristics: 6
Durable housing of a permanent nature that protects against extreme climate conditions.
Sufficient living space, which means not more than three people sharing the same room.
Easy access to safe water in sufficient amounts at an affordable price.
Access to adequate sanitation in the form of a private or public toilet shared by a reasonable number of people.
Security of tenure that prevents forced evictions. Informal settlements in the Philippines have become pervasive…
6 UN-Habitat. What are slums and why do they exist? http://www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/4625_51419.
The United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat) defines informal
settlements as areas where groups of housing units have been
constructed on land that the occupants have no legal claim to, and where housing is not in compliance with current planning and building regulations. Informal settlements have different names in different countries. From the rancherios puebros
in Paraguay, the tugurios
in El Salvador, and the
favelas of Brazil in Latin America, to the bastees
of India, the bidonvilles
of Bangladesh, the
kampungs of Indonesia and the barong-barongs
of the Philippines in Asia, each informal settlement has come to represent the worsening urban poverty in the cities of the developing world.
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In the Philippines, the proliferation of informal settlements has become a phenomenon associated with big cities and growing urban centers. In the early 1970s, Tondo earned the distinction of being the largest slum in Southeast Asia, with over 180,000 urban poor informal settlers. It was also the most politically volatile slum community in Metro Manila, the largest urban agglomeration in the Philippines. In addition, by the 1980s, pockets of slums around Metro Manila involving at least one million people had emerged while at about the same time, notable slums had surfaced in the secondary or regional cities of Cebu, Cagayan De Oro, Davao, and Baguio.7
During the 1990s, it was reported that the growth of informal settlements in the country was averaging roughly 3.6% annually. By 2000, there were over 1.2 million families living in informal settlements amid the major urban centers of the Philippines. Together, they
represented close to 30% of the urban population with more than 50% coming from Metro Manila.8 In 2001, however, a
study funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) reported that there were significantly more informal settlers—estimated at 2.5 million households and comprising nearly 35% of the country’s total urban population. 9
In 2007, a study commissioned by HUDCC concluded that there were 550,770 informal settler families, accounting for just over 5% of the total urban population during the same year. This suggested a drastic reduction in the magnitude of the problem but further analysis showed that the estimate was based on an extrapolation of the 2000 Census of Population and Housing (CPH) which strictly defined informal settlements as households occupying rent-free lots without the consent of the owners. A comparison of these results with a 2007 survey of informal settlers conducted by the National Housing Authority (NHA) in Metro Manila showed that the CPH-based estimate was considerably lower. Adjusting for the underestimation in the CPH-based study using the NHA survey results indicated that the number of informal settler families could be as high as 1.5 million, accounting for nearly 15% of the total urban population. 10
A more recent study conducted by the Statistical Research and Training Center in collaboration with HUDCC estimated that informal settler households nationwide had gone down to 471,481.11 This constituted about 4.6 % of the
total urban population in 2010. However, this number was also based on the 2010 CPH which measured informal settlers as households occupying rent-free lots without the consent of the owners. No census or survey was found to
7 World Bank. Philippines: Metro Manila Urban Development Project. Report on the Status of the Tondo Foreshore
Development Project. Unpublished.
8 Sandra O. Yu. 2002. Infrastructure Development and the Informal Sector in the Philippines. ILO Employment Intensive
Infrastructure Programmes: Socio-Economic Technical Paper (SETP no 12). Geneva: International Labour Office.
9 ADB. 2001. Development of Poor Urban Communities Project. Consultant’s report. Manila. (TA 3291-PHI).
10 Cruz, Jeanette. 2010. 11th National Convention on Statistics. Estimating Informal Settlers in the Philippines. Manila, 4-5
October.
11 Magtulis, Mary Ann and Eleanore Ramos. 2013. 12th National Convention on Statistics. Estimating Housing Needs Based on
2010 Census of Population and Housing. Manila, 1-2 October.
Informal settlements in the developing world are the result of unplanned and rapid urban growth. Available data barely accounts for the reality, as in most cases, they are based on figures extrapolated from old census, carried out in the 1970s or, if more recent, obtained with poor accuracy,
In the Philippines, slums or informal settlements have long been recognized as a challenge that must be faced. But part of the challenge lies in a more accurate determination of the extent of the problem. The key questions are: where are these settlements and how many really exist; at what pace have they grown; and, finally, how many people will need affordable housing and basic services.
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support attempts to broaden the operational definition of informal settlers to include individuals or households living under any of the following conditions: 12
Lot without consent of the property owner;
Danger areas along riverbanks, railways, under the bridge and others;
Areas designated for government infrastructure projects;
Protected/forest areas, except for indigenous peoples;
Areas for Priority Development (APDs), if applicable; and
Other government/public lands or facilities not intended for human habitation.
Data from surveys conducted by NHA with support from some local governments as of July 2011 placed the number of informal settlers much higher, at about 1.5 million, representing approximately 15% of the total urban population. Yet, this still seems to be significantly lower than global studies which indicate that about 30% to 60% of the population in many cities in the developing world lives in informal settlements.
Mainly fuelled by the Philippines’ economic growth and rapid urbanization of the last decades…
Economic theories link economic growth with urbanization. Classical economic development models have emphasized the need for predominantly rural economies to structurally transform to industrial economies in order to achieve steady and sustained
growth.13 The offshoot for the developing world has been
increasing levels of urbanization—the process by which large numbers of people become spatially concentrated in cities where they focus on non-agricultural activities. Cities are often described as “the engines of national prosperity or economic growth.” They serve as the locations where new forms of economic activity and economic organization evolve and gain higher value.
Economic development in the Philippines and urbanization has been just as intertwined. The economy, over the last decades, has managed to continue expanding by transitioning from being predominantly rural to being more industrially diverse and service-oriented. From the 1950 to the 1970s, the agriculture sector was a major contributor
to economic output and employment with a share to GDP that ranged from 24% to 30%. However, its contribution has started to decline toward the end of the 1980s.14 By the end of 2012, agriculture’s
share had shrunk to 11%, with the industry and services sectors accounting for 89% of the country’s total economic output. This structural transformation of the Philippine economy has been accompanied by a rapid pace of urbanization—with millions of Filipinos migrating from farm lands to cities, particularly to Metro Manila which has become one of the world’s largest urban agglomerations. Table 1 shows that the Philippines had the highest level of urbanization among its neighboring Asian countries up until mid- to late 2000, with 30.3% to 48% of its total population residing in urban areas. By 2015, nearly half of its entire population is projected to become urbanites. Its average annual rate
12 Definition proposed by the Statistical Research and Training Center and the Technical Working Group on Housing
Statistics coordinated by the National Statistical Coordination Board.
13 See for example Lewis, W. Arthur. Economic Development of Unlimited Supplies of Labor. The Manchester School. Volume
22, Issue 2, pages 139–191, May 1954.
14 Cham, Rowena and Dante Canlas. Notes on Philippine Economic Growth and Its Sources. The Philippine Review of
Economics. Vol. XLV, pages 1-14, June 2008.
Structural change models focus on the
mechanisms by which underdeveloped economies transform their domestic economic structures—from a heavy emphasis on traditional subsistence agriculture to a more modern, more urbanized and more industrially diverse manufacturing and service economy.
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of urbanization, which was considered the fastest in the Asia region from 1960 up to the mid-1990s, ranged from 3.79% to 5.04%.