Home is where the heart is

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN Human Rights) stated in its website that housing is a human right because it is “the basis of stability and security for an individual or family.

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The center of our social, emotional and sometimes economic lives, a home should be a sanctuary—a place to live in peace, security and dignity.” As someone who has spent most of his professional life building houses, I completely agree. As someone who grew up in an impoverished setting in Tondo, Manila where 11 of us—my parents and nine sons and daughters—lived in the second floor of an apartment building, I concur a hundred percent.

This is the reason why owning a house and making it a home is a fundamental aspiration for many Filipinos. According to the 2022 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), 62.1 percent of Filipino families own the house and lot they occupy. The PSA also noted that this figure represented an improvement from previous decades; for example, homeownership grew from 58.1 percent in 1985 to 64.5 percent in 1997—particularly in key urban areas such as Metro Manila and Metro Cebu—illustrating a gradual but persistent growth in Filipino homeownership.