Pathways to a Just Resettlement

In the Philippines, recurring disasters expose and reinforce the vulnerability of the urban poor, while elite-driven recovery, privatisation, and development keep pushing them off their land. These dynamics are especially prevalent in Metropolitan Cebu, where limited public land and market-led development agendas push informal settlers to the city's edges in the name of resilience. With 3.17 million residents concentrated across just 1,062.88 km², Metro Cebu faces intensifying land scarcity, making security of shelter and land tenure one of the most pressing concerns facing the urban poor.

The case of Sitapra Panaghiusa Homeowners Association (SPHOA) offers a close look at how these development approaches affect communities on the ground. SPHOA is a 371-member community-based organisation that resettled from Alaska Mambaling to Sitio Nangka Ville in Barangay Quiot in 2017. Amid widespread patterns of communities being displaced reactively by demolition orders or disaster, SPHOA proactively identified its relocation site and proposed it to the city government, espousing a community-initiated, state-mediated resettlement process.

Yet even where communities fulfil and exceed the expectations placed upon them, structural barriers continue to impede the full realisation of secure tenure and resettlement outcomes.