FOR THE LONGEST time, the national government has been dealing with the perennial problem of the proliferation of squatters, spending quite a huge chunk of its budget and yet hardly showing improvements.

The government’s socialized housing could not seem to cope-up with the rapidly growing number of families wanting to have a decent place they could call their own, mainly because of the magnitude of corruption taking place in the national government agencies delving on the matter. 

These agencies have become a milking cow of political appointees who probably mistook the government portfolio as reward for their “unconditional support” to whoever gave them what seemed to be “a juicy position.”

As such, dubious groups made use of this predicament to go into something lucrative, to the detriment of the hapless Filipino families who only wanted a safe place where they could live. These are the professional squatter syndicates who are enticing homeless families to become beneficiaries of what they claim as an earnest effort to do what the government failed to do – for less.

Compassion and Common Sense

I am no expert in addressing a problem that many scholars have tried, but failed to solve. But from what I have seen in a small lakeshore town in Rizal, addressing the problem of human settlement does not require one to be a genius.

According to a longtime friend, Gerry Calderon, solving the problem only requires two things – human compassion and common sense. By the way, Gerry was Angono, Rizal mayor for 18 years. Her daughter Jerimae has taken over and sustained her dad’s vision for a town that is widely referred to as the Art Capital of the Philippines.

According to Calderon, they too have their share of problems with the proliferation of squatters, and it took years before they got over it.

Calderon said that Angono does not have sufficient resources to buy land and transform it into a socialized housing zone, but they do have in sight a vast tract of idle private lands whose owners they have been talking to for a mutually beneficial tender.

Gerry’s take – mas maigi nang maibenta na lang nila in easy payment term ang lupa nila kesa magising sila isang umaga, pinasok na sila ng mga squatting syndicates. His trick seemed effective. 

Angono has warded off illegal squatting syndicates from taking over somebody else’s property. Angono has also addressed the need for a place for local folks who don’t have a place they could call their own. They have also given what many informal settlers usually prefer — in-city relocation.

Safety of Locals

It doesn’t end there though. The local government is not bent on gambling on the safety of their local folks. 

To ensure the safety of the houses that families would live in, the LGU is somehow being strict insofar as the structural integrity is concerned. Houses should not be in a place that would qualify as a hazard area. 

And most of all, human settlement areas should be accessible to the local government services.

After all, these families are human beings too.

THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE would be better off tapping the existing network of hard discount stores (HDS) – DALI Everyday Grocery, which is funded initially by a loan of $15 million from the Asian Development Bank and another $13 million later, and O!Save of Robinson’s Retail Holdings Inc. (RRHI) – to augment its network of Kadiwa outlets in the government’s desire to sell affordable food items to low income consumers of major cities in the country. 

Presently, there are 71 Kadiwa ng Pangulo (KNP) outlets, targeted to hit 179 this month. By mid-2025, 300 stores will rise, to reach 1,500 by the end of the Marcos administration.

Dali, the leading HDS, now has 630 stores as of last April. Before the year ends, the goal is 920 outlets.

Location is Paramount

Hard discount store chains, living up to its objective, were set up to make basic goods and food items affordable to the lower classes by sourcing unbranded stocks mostly from local manufacturers. HDS outlets have less marketing, merchandizing and operational costs. 

If you’ve noticed, there are little or no store shelves as items are places in boxes. There are lesser sales assistants, promodisers, and hardly any airconditioning. 

Location is paramount. These discount stores are mostly located in city centers and areas with high foot traffic.

Most Kadiwa stores are located within the compounds of DA agency offices. Others are mobile which have erratic and uncertain schedule of operation.

No Contest

Dali, a Swiss-based retail chain, was first established in Sta. Cruz, Laguna in February 2020. Being small did not cause a stir to its major rival, Puregold. 

But years later, it faced complaints and charges with regulatory agencies filed by Puregold. This did not make a dent in its expanded operations. 

Not even sari-sari stores can approximate the low rates at HDS outlets because the latter sell mostly branded products purchased at wet markets and groceries that had already made a huge mark-up.

Rushing Expansion

In the next 12 months, O!Save, on one hand, expects to more than double its store network in its pursuit to close the competitive gap with HDS pioneer and market leader, DALI.

After doubling its footprint to 318 stores in the 12 months to September, O!Save is gearing to add around 382 stores through end-2025, according to Gina Roa-Dipaling, vice president at Robinsons Retail, in a report of Bilyonaryo.

“O!Save is accelerating expansion. They really need to scale up,” Dipaling said at an investors forum. 

Expanding the store network will enhance O!Save’s capacity to contract manufacturers for in-house or private-label products, a critical factor for hard discount retailers to compete on price and affordability.

Pricing Strategy

The share of private labels in O!Save’s income improved to 17 percent of its $155 million nine-month revenue, up from 13 percent of $64 million in the same period last year. 

However, the hard discount retailer’s profitability depends heavily on how quickly this share can grow.

O!Save was established in 2021 by investors who had previously departed from the emerging DALI, a company disrupting larger retailers with its pricing strategy.  

Since the President’s instruction to DA is to make Kadiwa stores more accessible and strengthen its operations so more people can benefit from its lower-than-prevailing market prices, tying up with HDS would be a logical strategy.

A Business Model

How the competing companies would be able to gain respectable margins from their sales at prices that customers with tight budgets can afford would be an interesting case study for business students.

Other business conglomerates would be closely watching the HDS model of Robinson’s retail group. If this proves to be profitable, everyone would join the bandwagon. See how the generics pharmacy stores mushroomed?

“Give us the names of big-time smugglers—not the small fry,” the solons are wont to demand (more often hollering) from customs authorities or even from the prosecutors during congressional probes.

But, wait! Isn’t smuggling a crime? As such, only the courts can adjudge or pronounce a person guilty of smuggling? The authorities of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the prosecutors of the Department of Justice (DOJ) can only investigate, do case build-ups, and whenever this thing called “probable cause” do exist, they file the smuggling case in the appropriate courts.

And before our courts, the desires, biases, and swagger of the BOC and the DOJ are of no moment. Only those evidence—relevant, material, and competent—that they proffer to the court matter. Pending the decision of the courts, no person can be pronounced guilty of the crime of smuggling, let alone be called a smuggler. As the Constitution exhorts, all persons shall be presumed innocent until the contrary is proved. And the Constitution is the “mother of all laws” and rules—even supreme than the Rules of Congress. 

Thrown Into The Gaol 

For the solons to press their demand on the executive officials—BOC and DOJ, to submit to Congress the list of big-time smugglers is clearly off the mark—“wala sa hulog”. To repeat, only the courts can pronounce a person guilty of smuggling and thus be called smuggler. 

No amount of badgering—even shaming, Customs will force the latter to submit “that list” of smugglers. No one in BOC will have the heart to label people as smugglers until they are adjudged guilty as such. They run the risk of ending in the calaboose for libel ahead of these people whose names the solons want to hear getting thrown into the gaol for the crime of smuggling. 

We are not saying the BOC front liners are blameless. No! What we are saying is: until the courts have convicted the suspects, they are presumed innocent and are to roam free and treated guiltless. This is our sad reality.

The Probable Cause
Perhaps, what the solons can do while the DOJ prosecutors are hard pressed on finding “the probable cause” or the Courts proving the crime “beyond reasonable doubt” is to put to task the BOC leadership on why it continuously disregards Congress’s strict prescriptions in Section 412, 413, among others, that require all “entries” now known as “Single Administrative Documents” to be lodged, allowed, and/or processed only when filed/submitted “under oath” or under pain of perjury or falsification. 

And, please, not by “fake notaries” that abound throughout the length and breadth of the metropolis, nay archipelago. After all, ICT-driven apps, I.e., techOATH and iSWEAR, among others, are now readily available in the technological bureaucracy.

Until this Oath requirement of the Customs Tariff and Modernization Act is done—or Congress wakes up from its deep slumber pursuant to its oversight powers both under Republic Act No 10863 (CMTA) or Republic Act 12023 (AntiAgricltural Economic Sabotage Act) the evils of “undervaluation,” “misclassification,” “misdeclaration,” and other frauds upon customs will continue to haunt us notwithstanding today’s and future quadcom, pentacom/quintacom, or whatever forum their fertile minds can concoct.

And the congressional probes? Well, “all sound, no fury,” many are wont to say.