The estimated 10-year period within which to relocate Metro Manila's informal settlers may be a long time schedule to solve such endemic social problem.

But even with the P30 billion needed to effect the informal settlers' eventual eviction, the prospect of freeing the cities of their presence should be a welcome possibility.

Already, I can imagine Metro Manila with its cities and towns lustrous and shimmering with their neat surroundings, with streets and wide boulevards free from the shabby shacks and hovels around smearing the city atmosphere.

With flow of clean rivers streaming down their tributaries around cities and towns and on to the sea, Metro Manila could be the quintessence of an elegant place for the residents and visitors to enjoy and be proud of.

Without the squatters, now euphemistically called “informal settlers” the rivers and bridges connecting communities would be a cityscape of visual awareness and perception.

But surely more than that, relocating the squatters and providing them with decent places in more appropriate communities could open up a new way of life for them and their families towards a more useful and purposeful future.

With a place that the squatters can call their own, the government will be launching a new civilizing force of governance that could change people's lives as well as Metro Manila's well-being. This is a long-felt need that has remained neglected.

So far, these are all dreams, of course, but they are tenable.

Spearheading the move to relocate Metro Manila squatters is the Metro Manila Inter-Agency Committee on Informal Settlers (MMIAC).

Studies show that about 544,609 squatter families live in Metro Manila, and of this, 75,000 maintain their dwelling places in danger zones such as roadways, sidewalks, and esteros.

And not a few of them live under the bridges.

Just recently, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo directed local officials to forbid those who have left their homes during the typhoons to come back, especially those living along creeks and other danger areas.

To be given preferential consideration in the implementation of the 10-year relocation program are the Metro Manila squatter families as well as those “affected by the implementation of government infrastructure programs.”

The MMIAC which was organized precisely to deal with Metro Manila's worsening squatter menace is made up of the Metro Manila Development Authority, Presidential Commission on Urban Poor, Housing and Urban Development and Coordinating Council, Commission on Human Rights, the Office of the Undersecretary for Religious Rights, Caritas Manila, and the urban poor organizations in Metro Manila.

Under the MMIAC program, it is required to furnish some 22,689 socialized housing units a year with an annual funding requirement of R3.225 billion. (zhern_218@yahoo.com)