National president Charlie Gorayeb of the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders’ Association Inc. (CREBA) said government must provide an incentivized housing finance scheme as the millions of homeless poor, including the informal sector, cannot afford commercial lending rates.
To further boost this initiative, Gorayeb cited CREBA’s proposed bill pushing for the consolidation of a minimum of P350-billion fund all placed under a Centralized Home Financing Program (CHFP).
“The initial P350 billion for the CREBA-proposed CHFP will come from yearly bond issuances by the SSS at P5 billion, GSIS at P25 billion, a minimum of P70 billion up to a maximum of 70 percent of the Pag-IBIG Fund’s total investible funds for housing, P200 billion from the unused or residual agri-agra funds of banks, plus another P50 billion from the government’s annual budget,” Gorayeb said. The bill proposed by CREBA amends Republic Act 7835 or the Comprehensive and Integrated Shelter Finance Act (CISFA) of 1994.
Those fund sources, according to CREBA national chairman Noel Toti Carino, have already been identified by law, including the respective charters of the GOCC’s concerned, and need only to be integrated under the CHFP for effective administration to housing beneficiaries.
As proposed by CREBA, the CHFP shall be designed exclusively for financing assistance to borrowers for home loans, especially for socialized and economic housing, with no component for development loans, thus ensuring the use of the funds strictly for shelter acquisition by the homeless, estimated at a minimum of 5.7 million families nationwide.
