Abstract:
Development-induced projects usually cause the displacement of the urban poor. The
rail-development project of the government known as "North Rail and South Rail projects”
necessitates the dislocation of the informal settlers living along railway lines. The movement of
these informal settlers from their old community to a new one is considered an involuntary
resettlement.
Resettlement is currently perceived as a development issue since the government usually
implements this alternative program whenever there are infrastructure projects affecting families
in the targeted area. Oftentimes, these infrastructure projects were given importance over the
resettlement programs causing hardships and impoverishment to the project-affected families.
On this context, the researcher explored the effects of resettlement on the affected
families caused by the rail-development project initiated by the government. This study
evaluated the effects of the National Housing Authority's (NHA) resettlement program to
project-affected families relocated in the resettlement site located at Northville 4, Marilao,
Bulacan.
Based on the findings of this study, the resettlement of the project-affected families to
Northville 4 resulted to difficulty of access or even inaccessibility to livelihood, educational
institutions, basic needs— such as electricity and water connection, as well as difficulty of access
to health services or health centers. This study concluded that NHA's resettlement program is
satisfactory in the pre-relocation and relocation activities. However, NHA's resettlement
program remains unsatisfactory on the post-relocation stage due to relocatees5 ongoing concerns
on access to livelihood, and other basic needs.
