IF I WERE THE NEXT PRESIDENT(Part 4 of a series)

ByBEN R. PUNONGBAYAN

Founder, Buklod National Political Party

The present widespread presence of homeless and informal settlers in our society is another tormenting face of dehumanizing poverty in our country.Improving their current condition clearly needs direct government intervention.Otherwise, this problem will persist for a long time. The normal course of events cannot make it disappear or even mitigate it to any reasonable extent.

Current available information about the homeless and informal settlers appears to be incomplete and dated. As such, these data may not give a reasonable measure of the scope of these two problems. Nevertheless, these may be helpful in providing an indication of the government assistance needed to deal effectively with these serious and utterly degrading human problem.

A summary brief prepared by an American public policy advocate entity in July 2020 indicates that…