Homes or Hype? Unmasking the Philippines’ 4PH Housing Crisis

By Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo — June 4, 2025

IN THE shadow of Manila’s glittering skyline, Analyn, a mother of 10, clings to a shanty in Tondo, one of Southeast Asia’s largest slums. Her triplets’ arms are speckled with insect bites, their skin scarred by rashes from a garbage-strewn world. “A house is a dream,” she whispers, “but a house without a job, without a school for my kids, is just a cage.” Her words pierce the heart of the Philippines’ latest housing pledge under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s Pambansang Pabahay Para sa Pilipino (4PH) Program. Led by Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) Secretary Jose Ramon P. Aliling, the initiative promises to prioritize the “poorest of the poor” through the National Housing Authority (NHA) and the Social Housing Finance Corporation’s (SHFC) Community Mortgage Program (CMP). Yet, beneath the sheen of hope, festering systemic flaws, ignored historical failures, and skewed power dynamics threaten to betray families like Analyn’s, leaving them trapped in a cycle of poverty and displacement.

Broken Vows: Why the 4PH Program’s Promises Ring Hollow

The 4PH Program’s revised goal to build 3.2 million housing units by 2028, addressing a 6.5–6.9 million-unit backlog, is an ambitious pivot from the original one-million-unit annual target. But ambition alone cannot erase the Philippines’ history of housing failures. Programs like Oplan LIKAS relocated 55,000 families to sites in Bulacan, Laguna, Rizal, and Cavite, only to abandon them without water, electricity, or jobs. Many drifted back to urban slums, their “new homes” crumbling into ghost towns. The 4PH Program risks this same fate. The “poorest of the poor” label is dangerously vague, lacking clear eligibility criteria. Without transparent metrics, political favoritism—seen in past administrations where allies snagged benefits over the destitute—could hijack the process. Who qualifies? A street vendor scraping by on P200 ($3.50) a day? A family squatting by Manila Bay? This ambiguity invites corruption and exclusion.

Worse, the program’s heavy reliance on private developers, with over 50,000 units pledged, tilts the scales toward profit over people. The Makabayan bloc has exposed a harsh truth: a 24-square-meter unit costs P1.4 million ($24,000), with monthly amortizations of P3,500–P4,000 ($60–$70), unaffordable for families earning P16,000–P17,000 ($280–$300) monthly, even with subsidies. This echoes global patterns where financialized housing prioritizes developer profits, pushing the poor into debt or out entirely, as urban scholar David Harvey has warned. The CMP, while community-focused in theory, has long been crippled by slow processing and underfunding. Reviving it without fixing these flaws is like promising a harvest while neglecting the soil.

Voices in the Margins: Trapped in a Cycle of Displacement

In Metro Manila, 3.7 million informal settlers crowd “danger zones”—along waterways, under bridges, near railways—facing floods, disease, and eviction. The 4PH Program, tied to the Supreme Court’s Manila Bay rehabilitation mandate, aims to relocate 232,000 families. But relocation without infrastructure is a cruel mirage. Mang Johnny, a tricycle driver moved to Bulacan, shared his despair: “They gave us a house, but no jobs. I had to leave my family and return to Manila to work. Now we’re torn apart.” His children dropped out of school, with no nearby facilities—a pattern documented in a 2015 Sunstar report on failed relocations. Without schools, health centers, or transport links, these “model townships” risk becoming wastelands.

Colombia’s social housing debacle is a stark warning. In the 2000s, Bogotá built high-density projects like Ciudad Bolívar for the poor, only to create isolated enclaves far from jobs and services. Crime and poverty soared as residents struggled. The 4PH Program’s push for vertical housing and private-led townships treads a similar path. If DHSUD prioritizes unit counts over livability, families like Analyn’s could be confined to concrete traps, their dreams of dignity crushed by isolation and debt.

Lip Service or Reform? Scrutinizing Aliling’s Anti-Corruption Pledge

Secretary Aliling’s “zero tolerance” for corruption, trumpeted in May 2025 statements, sounds bold but lacks substance. The DHSUD’s past is marred by allegations of fund misuse and favoritism, with squatting syndicates manipulating beneficiary lists. Aliling promises digitization and transparency, but where are the concrete measures? No public audits, no real-time expenditure tracking, no independent oversight bodies. The department’s bureaucratic inertia, compounded by coordination snags among LGUs, Pag-IBIG, and developers, undermines its capacity to deliver. Without enforceable mechanisms, Aliling’s pledge is mere political theater, especially as the Marcos administration leans on the 4PH Program to bolster its 59% public approval rating.

Initiatives like the Integrated Disaster Shelter Assistance Program (IDSAP), with P130 million disbursed for typhoon victims, and the Plan and Do (PLANADO) digitalization effort show flickers of progress. But these are dwarfed by the 6.5 million-unit backlog. True accountability demands open access to project data—land acquisition costs, developer contracts, beneficiary lists—and a whistleblower system to expose corruption. Without these, “zero tolerance” is as empty as the unfulfilled promises of past regimes.

Profit Over People: The Developer-Driven Threat

The 4PH Program’s reliance on private developers, with pledges like Raemulan Lands Inc.’s 35,656 units, is a gamble. Private capital can speed construction, but it skews priorities. Developers, chasing profits, may skimp on quality or favor sites that maximize returns over community needs. A 2025 Philippine News Agency report noted Pag-IBIG’s P761 million in loans to contractors, signaling deep financialization. Research by David Harvey shows how such models exacerbate inequality: developers target the lower-middle class for repayment reliability, sidelining the poorest. The 4PH’s vertical housing focus, while land-efficient, risks creating vertical slums if maintenance and amenities falter.

Contrast this with Thailand’s Baan Mankong program, where slum dwellers design their own upgrades, ensuring homes fit their needs. The CMP could adopt this model, but its revival lacks detail on community empowerment. If developers dominate, the “poorest of the poor” may be shunted to substandard units in remote areas, while prime urban land fuels commercial profits. This power imbalance—government ceding control to private interests—threatens to entrench the inequalities the 4PH claims to dismantle.

A Blueprint for Hope: Real Solutions for the Poor

To break this cycle, DHSUD must act with urgency and empathy:

Community-Driven Design: Empower settlers to co-create housing through participatory planning, as in Thailand’s Baan Mankong. The CMP should prioritize community ownership, with funding for resident cooperatives.
Holistic Relocation: Build schools, health centers, and transport links into relocation sites from day one. A 2019 Mongabay report flagged job loss as a relocation failure; DHSUD must partner with labor agencies for livelihood programs.
Ironclad Safeguards: Legislate anti-eviction protections and prioritize in-city relocation. Colombia’s peripheral housing failures show the risks; Manila’s poor need homes near their livelihoods.
Radical Transparency: Create an independent oversight body and public dashboards for real-time tracking of funds, contracts, and beneficiaries. Aliling’s digitization must be open to scrutiny.
Beyond Bricks and Mortar: Fund longitudinal studies to track employment, education, and health outcomes, not just unit counts. “Model townships” must deliver lives, not just roofs.

A Plea for Analyn’s Future

Analyn’s voice cuts through the policy fog: “A house isn’t enough. We need a life.” The 4PH Program could be a lifeline for millions, but only if it learns from history’s failures. DHSUD must confront systemic flaws, center the poor in decision-making, and hold power accountable. Without bold reforms, this initiative risks becoming another monument to broken dreams, leaving families like Analyn’s to cling to hope in the shadows of progress.