Producing Empty Socialized Housing Privatizing Gains, Socializing Costs, and Dispossessing the Filipino Poor

Abstract

This paper explicates the moral hazard in the current privatepublic partnerships (PPPs) that produced empty socialized housing in the Philippines. It argues that not only do housing PPPs privatize profits and socialize risks and costs, these also strengthen the state housing agency’s efficacy as an instrument of neoliberal governance. It further argues that this moral hazard is built on and resolved by curtailing the urban poor’s right to democratic participation and adequate housing. Through the socialized housing program, a systematic spatial, political, and economic displacement of the poor is institutionalized to facilitate private gain and commodify housing for the poor. By focusing on the Philippine case, this research contributes to a better understanding of housing governance within actually existing neoliberalisms in the South.