Vice President Manuel “Noli” De Castro is calling for an updated inventory of informal settler families in Metro Manila requiring settlement.

De Castro told the Manila Bulletin that although long before the typhoons, the local government units already made an initial inventory, there is now an urgent need to update this and to prioritize.

“First in the list of priorities are families who have lost their houses and have nowhere else to go back to. These are families who cannot be accommodated in evacuation centers anymore and who have made decisions to be permanently resettled,” De Castro, who is the head of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, said.

Second, using the same inventory, the government needs to classify the available assistance that can be given, he said.

He pointed out that the government has relocated more than 900 families from Marikina to Sta. Rosa and Biñan, Laguna. Just recently, he said 147 residents of Quezon City were resettled in Towerville in Bulacan.

“We have also conducted a tripping in Calauan, Laguna for displaced families numbering to 3,000 from Pasig and we are now working with the provincial government of Rizal to identify and immediately develop a housing site for their evacuees initially estimated at about 5,000 covering the municipalities of San Mateo, Rodriguez, and Antipolo City,” De Castro said.

In the long term, De Castro said the government must refer to the 10-year Comprehensive Shelter Program of the Metro Manila Inter-Agency Committee which is chaired by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) with the National Housing Authority as vice chairman.