EDSA Shangri-La Hotel
October 4-5, 2010
ESTIMATING INFORMAL SETTLERS IN THE PHILIPPINES
In the Housing Backlog Study commissioned by the HUDCC, the Consultants prepared the estimates of Informal Settlers in the Philippines. According to the Spatial Statistics of
Informal Settlers in the Philippines component of the Study, informal settler families reached an estimated 550,771 households as of August 1, 2007. This is based on the extrapolation made using the 2000 Census of Population and Housing (CPH) and the 2007 Census of
Population. The study showed that the highest concentration of informal settlers was in
Quezon City, having more than 90 thousand households. Far second are Rizal in
Calabarzon and Davao City in the Davao Region, both with more than 20 thousand households in the informal settler sector.
Table 1. Results of the Mapping of Informal Settlers in the Philippines
It should be noted that for this specific study, Informal Settlers are defined as those households1 whose tenure status is “rent-free without consent of owner”. The 2000 Census of Population and Housing (CPH) data provides statistics on households with tenure of lot,
“rent-free without consent of owner” which were then classified as informal settlers.
However, the 2007 Census of Population did not include the “housing aspect”, hence the study used the characteristic observed in CPH 2000 to project the numbers for 2007.
The HUDCC then compared the result of the Study with the Survey on Informal Settlers in
Metro Manila conducted by the NHA in 2007. In Table 2, the NHA identified 544,609 informal settler families in Metro Manila, while the NS0-CPH figures account for only 199,398 informal settler families.
1
Household- a group of persons who sleep in the same housing unit and have a common arrangement in the preparation and consumption of food.
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Table 2. Comparison of Estimated Number of Informal Settlers in
Metro Manila, 2007
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