Thank you for inviting me again to your regular general membership meeting and induction of new set of directors and officers for 2011. I am once again provided with the opportunity to foster stronger ties with the industry, and for this I am indeed grateful.
            There is no doubt that the dynamism of your discussions will have a positive impact on the industry. Your organization has become one of our sounding boards as we introduce reforms in the housing sector.
            With a deep sense of loss, CREBA will be missing the counsel of your founding chairman, Manny Serrano, and I share personally the same sentiment.
            Allow me to report to you that for the first time after 5 years, we were able to convene a meeting of the HUDCC last January 19. The super council is the highest policy making body on housing and in that meeting, the directions and policies presented by HUDCC were unanimously adopted. And clearly the resolutions drew the support of cabinet members and heads of government financial institutions, particularly our direction of making the private sector lead a significant part of solving the problem of homelessness. I am sure we can count on the support of the private sector and CREBA, in particular.
            Since the availability of land is our main resource, we will call on investors and developers to partner with us through a private-public partnership program. Joint ventures, land-sharing schemes or usufructory arrangements on land will be offered. The underlying objective is to make use of these public lands to produce the houses and to accelerate the effort of construction to bring down the housing backlog.
            We are also engaging banks and GFIs to revive their contributions to the housing fund and centralizing the grant of housing loans under Pag-IBIG, similar to the pooled money on a single window concept under the unified home lending program. In this manner, the funds for development and homebuyers loans will be augmented and private developers will be assured of continuous financing to support an accelerated construction schedule.
            We hope that you understand the reasons for the delay in the release of your development loans from Pag-IBIG fund. Yes, Pag-IBIG is being overcautious, but this is intended to protect the stability of the fund. But let me assure you that we will take steps to address your concerns and to release your funds with dispatch, of course, with the proper controls in place. 
            Let me reiterate that for as long as I am at the helm of HUDCC, and chair of the Pag-IBIG fund, I will never give special treatment in the grant of loans and licenses and you can be assured of a level playing field.
            Through your president Mr. Charlie Gorayeb, CREBA sent me a proposal to increase the ceiling for VAT exemption on selling prices of house and lot from the present amount of P2,500,000 to P3,500,000.
            I would like to announce that we have favorably endorsed your approval to the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Hopefully, we can get the BIR to approve it.
            The other part of our partnership should be our concern for the poor.
            May we invite the members of CREBA to join hands with HUDCC in developing housing projects by putting-up your compliance to the 20% balanced housing requirements at proclaimed sites. We will provide you with the list of presidential proclamations and we look forward to a meeting to detail our plans and show you which of these proclaimed sites can be developed under a PPP scheme, or its variants.
            As you may be aware, land proclamation is a major strategy to acquire and develop idle and underutilized government lands for housing. As part of our implementing strategy, proclaimed lands shall form part of the pool of real estate assets from which sites for future housing projects or resettlement can be allocated.
            Together, we have to continue looking for enduring solutions to address the housing problems of the country. I hope the officers and members of CREBA will respond to this call for reform and to produce more houses not only for our homeless, but most importantly for our unsung heroes – our government employees, soldiers, policemen, teachers and other low-salaried public servants.
            Again, I thank all of you for all your support and cooperation with HUDCC. My congratulations to all of you, and may we all have a pleasant and blessed evening ahead.

            Maraming salamat po.​