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Nanay Mameng

Mother Mameng delves deep into the character of a woman who has experienced extreme poverty and domestic violence and rose from from it all to become the beloved personality, well-known to the Philippine mass movement.

Written and directed by Adjani Arumpac and produced by Kodao Productions, this 2012 bio-docu was the Gawad Urian Best Documentary that year.

Carmen Deunida passed away due to old age last July 19, still the beloved icon of the urban poor movement in the Philippines. (Featured artwork by Tom Estrera.)

Urban poor champion Carmen Deunida passes away

Carmen Deunida, founding chairperson of the urban poor group Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay), died yesterday, Monday, July 19.

“It is with sadness that we announce that our great leader and founding chairperson has passed away at 93 years old,” Kadamay announced in Filipino.

Deunida was a 50 year old single mother in Leveriza in Manila when she became an activist and a community leader after listening to political discussions held in their house by youth groups her son was part of in 1978.

She was also a women’s rights advocate, being a victim of domestic violence.

Frail-looking but a master of rousing speeches, Deunida first gained prominence at anti-Joseph Estrada protest rallies and became among the most popular speakers in rallies against the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo presidency.

She remained a critic even during the Benigno Aquino and Rodrigo Duterte administrations.

Lalaban hanggang may dugo. Titigil lang ako sa kapag ako’y nasa kabaong na!” was one of her most memorable and oft-repeated lines. (I will fight on while there is still blood in me. I will only stop when I am inside a coffin.)

Deunida’s popularity was instrumental in the establishment of Kadamay after the second people power uprising that ousted Estrada in 2001.

She witnessed the organization’s growth into the country’s biggest and most militant organization of the urban poor.

Deunida had been in an undisclosed hospital for several days before she died.

Deunida was the subject of the bio-documentary “Nanay Mameng” that won the 2012 Gawad Urian Best Documentary. Produced by Kodao Productions, it was written and directed by Adjani Arumpac.

Kadamay said it will soon announce schedules of tribute activities and Nanay Mameng’s internment. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

QC houses demolished amid strict Covid lockdown

[UPDATED, 7:00 AM, April 6, 2021] Amid an extended round of the latest Covid pandemic lockdown, several houses had been demolished today along Maginoo Street, Barangay Pinyahan in Quezon City.

Urban poor group Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) reported that elderly residents who lived in the demolished houses have been forced out on the streets, raising fears they may later be arrested by the police for curfew and lock down violations.

Eleven families were affected and no relocation has yet been offered to them, Kadamay told Kodao.

Private claimant-couple Nicolo and Luzviminda Junsay led the demolition, Kadamay said.

The group claimed the demolition is illegal and that barangay officials had no prior knowledge of the incident.

Kadamay said that prior to today’s incident, the affected residents were being forced to sign certain documents but no court order and notice have been presented before the demolition team swooped down on the community.

Demolition along Maginoo Street, Brgy. Pinyahan, Quezon City. (Kadamay photos)

“While we are under the ECQ (enhanced community quarantine), the demolition pushed through. No notice, no relief goods, no assistance had been given to those affected and straight out on the streets they went,” Kadamay said in an alert.

The group blamed both the National Housing Authority and President Rodrigo Duterte as promoters of demolitions.

“They order us to stay at home while new coronavirus cases are on the rise, but they continue to endanger people. Those affected have lost their houses and are likely to be arrested while they are out on the streets,” Kadamay said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Kadamay starts urban poor campout at CHR

Urban poor group Kadamay launched a campout to protest attacks on their communities and members at the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Thursday, January 23.

“Mapanganib ang buhay ng mahihirap sa ilalim ni Duterte, kami’y sinasabing mga terorista pero kinakatwiran lamang ito ng mga awtoridad para itulak ang mga atake at demolisyon sa maraming komunidad sa buong bansa,” Kadamay chairperson Gloria “Ka Bea” Arellano said.

CHR chairperson Chito Gascon welcomed members of the group Kadamay and joined them in a boodle fight.

Commission on Human Rights chairperson Chito Gascon welcomes Kadamay members and supporters.

Kadamay said that widespread demolitions and displacement due to the government’s aggressive infrastructure campaign “Build Build Build” is one of the reasons for attacks against the civil liberties of the poor.

The camp, supported by the CHR and the University of the Philippines, is intended to serve as a sanctuary for urban poor Filipinos whose lives are in danger for opposing the unjust policies of the regime.

Kadamay decried the harassment, assaults, fake charges, wrongful arrests, violence and extortion of fake surrenderees by law enforcement.

Other attacks have been tallied in communities across the nation. In Navotas, Kadamay said its members are routinely hounded by personnel of the Philippine Navy. Leaders and members are also charged with bogus criminal cases.

In Bulacan, Kadamay said two of urban poor organizers are detained on fabricated charges. They have also masterminded the creation of alternate groups dubbed “pro-government’ to combat Kadamay and spread violence in Pandi, Bulacan.

“Palibhasa sa taong 2019 at lalo sa 2020, malawakang ipapatupad ang maraming demolisyon para sa BBB. Hindi naman nireresolba ang matinding kawalan ng tahanan sa ating bayan, pararamihin pa ang homeless, inaatake pa sila ng mga pulis at sundalo. Kaya kami naglunsad ng kampuhan upang isiwalat ang katotohanang ito sa mamamayan. Hindi kaunlaran ang dulot ng BBB, ibayong kahirapan at homelessness ang epekto,” explained Arellano.

Around 506, 495 will be displaced from 15 (out of 100) of the flagship projects under the BBB, Kadamay said.

Gascon joins Kadamay in a boodle fight.

The group also disputed the fact that the government will be able to provide relocation for all the displaced. In the last five years, only 58% of whole target of homes for Yolanda victims was made. In addition, the housing budget has plummeted under Duterte, with a 76% reduction.

Kadamay called to resolve the homeless crisis, not aggravate it. “Karapatan ang paninirahan, ibig sabihin, dapat responsibilidad ng pamahalaan na harapin at resolbahin ito.”

Ang kailangan ng maralita at homeless, disente, abot-kaya at pangmasang pabahay. Lilikha ito ng trabaho, paninirahan at ganansya para sa buong ekonomiya. At imbes na gibain ang mga komunidad, paunlarin. Tanging mga malalaking negosyante at mga kapitalista ng China ang makikinabang sa mga proyekto ng BBB,” said Arellano. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

2 urban poor activists abducted

By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
bulatlat.com

MANILA — Two urban poor activists were forcibly disappeared yesterday, April 13, in Bulacan.

The two urban poor organizers are Kadamay member John Griefen Arlegui, 20, and youth group Anakbayan’s Reynaldo Remias, Jr., 24.

They were accosted at gunpoint between 10:00 to 11:00 in the morning while posting posters of senatorial aspirant Neri Colmenares and partylist group Bayan Muna along Angat-Pandi Road, according to eyewitnesses.

Kadamay said in its statement that they were forced into a red car that bore no license plate by armed men in plainclothes, right in front of the Iglesia ni Cristo church in Brgy. Sta Cruz, Angat, Bulacan.
 
Kadamay’s chapter in Pandi learned of their abduction when they noticed the election sortie vehicle, along with their election materials, parked along the highway in the afternoon of April 13. The two, however, were missing.
                                           
Kadamay said they have already searched police stations in Angat, Norzagaray, Sta. Maria, and San Jose del Monte but were told that the two are not in their custody.

Arlegui and Remias were among the members of Kadamay who occupied the abandoned government housing in Pandi, Bulacan.

The urban poor group suspects that the abductors belong to the 48th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army.

Last year, no less than President Duterte ordered an elite police force to go against Kadamay, whose members were occupying government housing units. He went as far as ordering to have them killed should Kadamay resist a police takeover in the housing units.

This is not the first time for Kadamay members in Pandi to be subjected to rights abuses.

On March 26, 2019, two Kadamay members Marlon Acedera and Joel Chavez were illegally arrested when bullets were supposedly found in their homes within the occupied housing in Padre Pio Resettlement in Cacarong Bata, Pandi.

The two remain incarcerated as of this writing.

Kadamay national chairperson Gloria Arellano called for the surfacing of their two members.

She added, “we blame the Duterte regime for openly attacking the legal democratic movement with all the possible means in order to quell the resistance of the Filipino people against its anti-poor and anti-people policies.” #

‘Trabaho, serbisyo, paninirahan’

“Kaming mga maralita, ang panawagan namin ay trabaho na may sapat na sahod, gayundin ang serbisyong panlipunan—lalong-lalo na ang disenteng paninirahan.”—Bea Arellano, Chairperson, Kadamay

San Roque residents still hope for Duterte’s promised change

Their shrinking community now lies sandwiched between towering apartments and sprawling malls for the moneyed few. But residents of Sitio San Roque in Barangay Pag-Asa in Quezon City remain hopeful their struggle for decent and just housing would finally come true under President Rodrigo Duterte who promised as much.

(Video by Gabe Sante and Gabby Endona of UP-CMC for Kodao Productions) Read more

Taguiwalo admits ‘tolerating’ Kadamay members, poor citizens

FOLLOWING accusations the Department of Social Welfare and Development is “tolerating” Kadamay members who occupied vacant housing units in Bulacan province by giving them assistance, Secretary Judy Taguiwalo called a press conference last Friday.

Taguiwalo tried presenting and discussing other DSWD programs but majority of journalists present were focused on the agency’s distribution of food packs in Pandi, Bulacan last week and on accusations the agency is giving special treatment to the “occupiers.”

Taguiwalo said all of DSWD’s programs are for the poor.  She said the agency is always ready to give help to those who ask, especially the poor.
Read more

Kadamay presses demand for housing rights

Urban poor group Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) trooped to the National Housing Authority yesterday, March 24, to condemn the agency’s failure to address the housing crisis that victimizes at least five million families household nationwide.

The group called for scrapping of the Urban Development and Housing Act it said never succeeded in addressing the ever-worsening shortage of housing for the poor.

Kadamay called on the poor to join them in demanding free mass housing for the poor from the Rodrigo Duterte government. (Video by Divine Miranda)

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Urban poor calls for scrapping of Housing Act of 1992

The Rodrigo Duterte government must step up in terms of providing mass housing, urban poor group Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay)  said.

“For too long the public has been led to believe that social services, like housing, were only meant to be publicly funded but not publicly allocated. There is a housing crisis in the country, not only because the government’s 5.5 million backlog still stands but because the current setup of socialized housing is inherently anti-poor,” Kadamay secretary-general Carlito Badion said.

Among the issues Kadamay protested at a rally in front of Mendiola last March 13 was the National Housing Authority’s (NHA) insistence on the “socialized” housing scheme spelled out in Republic Act 7279, the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) of 1992.

Kadamay, however, rejects the scheme as its forces the poor to pay up on what should be a basic social service.

“The government and NHA insist that the urban poor, one of the most disenfranchised in our country, should pay for a basic right,” Badion said.

It is as if the houses being built and sold come with water, electricity and basic utilities, Badion added.

“Occupy Bulacan”

To force the Duterte government to finally act, Kadamay started occupying government housing units in Bulacan Province since March 8.

Kadamay said the houses comprise a small percentage of 53,000 units that have remained vacant for as long as five years.

The NHA has called their actions “illegal” while Duterte called Kadamay’s move as “anarchic.”

Kadamay condemned the statements, saying their actions would not have been necessary had the government acted on Duterte’s promise to distribute vacant housing units during last year’s Housing Summit.

“This is not the first time we have voiced our demands. We marched and presented our call for housing rights before the president. Our petitions have fallen on deaf ears,” he added.

Kadamay chairperson Gloria Arellano said they are not taking houses away from alleged rightful owners.

“That cannot be the case when there is nobody living in the houses,” she said.

Kadamay said their sector continue to suffer as when the Benigno Aquino government demolished their communities and forcibly evicted thousands of families from their houses.

“Duterte’s government is showing that Presidents past and present take the same stance against the interests of the poor,” Badion said.

They called for the scrapping of the UDHA, which they saw as an obstacle to their basic right to housing.

“By retaining the UDHA and the NHA’s corrupt practices, problems for the urban poor will keep repeating themselves. The UDHA must be scrapped to make way for free and mass housing for the poor,” Kadamay said. # (Abril Layad B. Ayroso)