Master Thesis - Collaborative Processes, a solution for an institutionally fragmented Manila Bay

Collaborative Processes, a solution for an institutionally fragmented Manila Bay The case of Informal Settlers in the coverage area of Manila Bay Sustainable Development Master Plan

Thesis Project by: Lina AHRIKAT Supervisor: Corinne Larrue

MASTER 2 « URBANISME ET EXPERTISE INTERNATIONALE » Villes des Suds 2018 -2019

Collaborative Processes, a solution for an institutionally fragmented Manila Bay The case of Informal Settlers in the coverage area of Manila Bay Sustainable Development Master Plan

Master Thesis Report MASTER 2 « URBANISME ET EXPERTISE INTERNATIONALE » Option Villes des Suds ECOLE D’URBANISME DE PARIS UNIVERSITE PARIS - EST

Author: Lina AHRIKAT Supervisor: Corinne Larrue. Professor of urban and environmental planning at the University of Paris- Est Créteil & Co-director of the Paris School of Planning (Ecole d’Urbansime de Paris EUP).

JuryMembers: Virginie Rachmuhl. Sociologist -Urbanist. Head of Urban Programs at GRET. Professor at Paris School of Planning EUP. Sylvy Jaglin. Researcher at LATTS (Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés). Director of Master 2 « URBANISME ET EXPERTISE INTERNATIONALE » Option Villes des Suds at Paris School of Planning (Ecole d’Urbansime de Paris EUP).

OCTOBER 2019

Acknowledgment I would like first to thank my thesis supervisor LARRUE Corinne whose expertise was invaluable in the formulation of this dissertation. Despite the long distance, she constantly steered me in the right direction and her cheerfulness at every call kept me motivated.

I would also like to thank my professors from EUP for providing me with the right tools and helping me develop a critical mind that I carried throughout this research. I am also grateful for your sympathetic ear, availability and wise council all along the academic program and during my first steps in the professional experience.

‘Salamat’ TRACTEBEL Philippines for providing me with such fantastic, professional and personal, experience. Many thanks to Nicolas LEFEVRE, the Regional Manager of TRACTEBEL Philippines, , for giving me this opportunity.

The fun, support, trust, and kindness of my colleagues at TRACTEBEL, was a huge help in adapting to the new environment and coping with the pressure of the requirements that came with the internship. With a very special mention to Nick, Pauline, Gaëlle my partner in crime, and all the URBAN Team, you guys are just amazing!

Very special gratitude goes out to, Ms. Mia Quimpo, the head of Urban Team, whose positive attitude and motivation were a great inspiration.

Thank you for the great support I received while conducting the data collection for this research.

To Mary Racelis, Arch.LitoTabuldan, the Manila Bay Team, and every person who contributed to this work, Thank you all for your support!

This work would not exist without the support and love of my family, specifically my parents who are behind every lesson I learn and every accomplishment I reach. Thank you for your indulgence, moral and emotional support even when my absent mind and busy self, took long to reach out. I am forever grateful!

Table of content Acknowledgment ........................................................................................................................................................ 7 Acronyms / Abbreviations ...................................................................................................................................... 10 List of figures................................................................................................................................................................ 12

I - Internship Report..........................................................................................................14 Presentation of the structure: ......................................................................................................... 14 Completed missions and acquired competences: ........................................................................ 15 Link to academic background and professional orientation...................................................... 20

II - THESIS Report ..................................................................................................................21 Introduction.......................................................................................................................................... 21 Rationale......................................................................................................................................................................... 21 Methodology................................................................................................................................................................. 22

Part 1- Context of the study ............................................................................................................. 23 Introduction................................................................................................................................................................... 23 1. A - Introducing Manila Bay Sustainable Development Master Plan................................................... 23 a. Background and objectives .................................................................................................................... 23 b. Coverage of the MBSDMP........................................................................................................................ 24 c. Timeline ......................................................................................................................................................... 24 d. Team structure and composition.......................................................................................................... 25 1.B - Urbanization and Informal Settlements ................................................................................................. 27 a. General Context........................................................................................................................................... 27 b. The example of Tondo Slums................................................................................................................. 28 1.C - Institutional and Legal Context.................................................................................................................... 34 a. Stakeholder Mapping ................................................................................................................................ 34 Civil Society and Academe ................................................................................................................................. 36 Private Sector .......................................................................................................................................................... 37 Public Sector.............................................................................................................................................................. 37

Multi-level bodies .................................................................................................................................................. 41 International Stakeholders................................................................................................................................... 42

b.Plurality, fragmentation and diversity, an institutional reality for Manila Bay ISFs issue ................................................................................................................................................................................43

Thesis Statement ................................................................................................................................ 49 Part 2. Collaborative Planning theories for fragmented communities.................................... 50 Introduction................................................................................................................................................................... 50 2.A – Emergence of ‘Collaborative Planning’.................................................................................................... 50 2.B - The need for Collaborative Planning, or why practice it ?............................................................... 52 2.C - The potential of Collaborative Planning.................................................................................................. 53 2.D – Ingredients for practicing Collaborative Planning ............................................................................. 53 Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................................... 55

Part 3. MBSDMP Planning Approach.............................................................................................. 55 Introduction................................................................................................................................................................... 55 3.A - MBSDMP General Approach and strategies............................................................................................ 55 A. The priorities................................................................................................................................................ 56 b. The strategies: ............................................................................................................56 c. The processes and practices.................................................................................................................... 58 d. Analytical conclusion................................................................................................................................. 59 3.B - Case Study 1: Coastal LGUs of Region III................................................................................................. 60 a. Description & Analysis ............................................................................................................................. 60 b. Analytical Conclusion................................................................................................................................ 62 3. C - Case Study 2: Coastal LGUs of NCR.......................................................................................................... 63 a. Description & Analysis.............................................................................................................................. 63 b.Analytical Conclusion.................................................................................................................................. 65

Conclusion............................................................................................................................................. 66 Bibliography......................................................................................................................................... 68

Acronyms / Abbreviations ADB

Asian Development Bank

BOI

Bureau of Investment

CMP

Community Mortgage Program

CSOs

Civil Society Organizations

DENR

Department of Environment and Natural Resources

DET

Dutch Expert Team

DHSUD

Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development

DILG

Department of Interior and Local Governments

DSWD

Department of Social Welfare and Development

EO

Executive Order

EUP

Ecole d’Urbanisme de Paris

GDP

Gross Domestic Product

HLURB

Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board

HUDCC

Urban Development Coordinating Council

IFIs

International Financing Institutions

ISFs

International Financing Institutions

KSAs

Key Shelter Agencies

LCF

Local Consulting Firm

LGUs

Local Government Units

LHB

Local Housing Board

MBSDMP Manila Bay Sustainable Development Masterplan

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MC

Memorandum Circular

MMDA

Metro Manila Development Authority

NAPC

National Anti-Poverty Commission

NAPC

National Anti-Poverty Commission

NCR

National Capital Region

NEDA

National Economic and Development Authority  

NGAs

National Government Agencies

NGOs

Non-Governmental Organizations

NHA

National Housing Authority

NHMFC

National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation

NTWG

National Technical Working Group

PAPs

Projects, Activities, Programs

PCUP

Philippine Commission for the Urban Poor

PD

Presidential Decree

PDP

Philippine Development Plan

PMO

Project management Office

PMO

Project Management Office

POs

People Organizations

PPP

Public - Private Partnerships

RA

Republic Act

SHFC

Social Housing Finance Corporation

TOR

Terms of Reference

UDHA

Urban Development Housing Act

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List of figures I - Internship Report Figure 1. Worldwide Presence of TRACTEBEL. Figure 2. TRACTEBEL services throughout the cycle of a project Figure 5. Consultative workshop August 16, 2019 16 Figure 6. powerHYDE, a sustainable, smart, energy positive modular house

I - THESIS Report

Figure 1. MBSDMP Coverage Map Figure 2.MBSDMP Timeline and phases.

Figure 3.Team Structure.

Figure 4. Evolution of built up area in Metro Manila.

Figure 6. Barangays 101 & Barangay 105 Location Map. Figure 7. Current exterior extensions in ‘The Katuparan Condominium’ Project.

Figure 8. Current exterior extensions in ‘The Katuparan Condominium’ Project.

Figure 9. Alleys at ‘The Katuparan Condominium’ showcasing sanitation issues.

Figure 10. Shops established between the housing units and the road.

Figure 11. Happy Land Slum.

Figure 12. A child working as a scavengersin ‘Happy Land’.

Figure 13. Current streets and houses typologies at the ‘Tondo Foreshore Development’ area.

Figure 14. Stakeholders relational Webs.

Figure 15. Administrative divisions of the Philippines.

Figure 16. Stakeholders by sector of intervention .

Figure 17. Clusters of Stakeholders as considered by MBSDMP. Figure 18.Location Map (Bulacan, Papamga, Bataan).

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I - Internship Report Presentation of the structure: TRACTEBEL’s services and global presence TRACTEBEL is a major international engineering and consulting company with more than 150 years

of experience in the Water, Urban (buildings and complex structures, urban planning, transport), and energy sectors. It has its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, with offices in 70 countries including the Philippines.

TRACTEBEL is part of ENGIE Group, a global energy and services provider which has been a pioneer

in the decarbonization, decentralisation and digitalisation of the energy management for years.

In South East Asia, TRACTEBEL has more than 1000 staff members based in permanent offices in Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, India and China. In Manila (Philippines), TRACTEBEL can now count on a total workforce of more than 100 permanent staff.

Figure 1.

Worldwide Presence of TRACTEBEL. @ TRACTEBEL

TRACTEBEL provides a full range of

multidisciplinary solutions in Energy, Water and Urban. (See figure 3) The company provides services at all stages of the project life cycle: strategy and planning, project preparation, transaction and procurement, project implementation and finally operation.

Figure 2. TRACTEBEL services throughout the cycle of a project @ TRACTEBEL

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TRACTEBEL Urban Department TRACTEBEL’S Urban Department carries out engineering studies and provides multidisciplinary consulting services for cities and people.

Figure.3 Detail of the different expertise of TRACTEBEL

Completed missions and acquired competences: Manila Bay Sustainable Development MBSDMP I joined the MBSDMP right at the end of the ‘Strategy Planning Phase’. The team had already submitted: • The Strategy -Building Report, • The draft Master Plan Report, • The capacity-building Report, • The institutional Set-Up Report.

The ‘Operational Planning Phase’ begun after the ‘Technical Committee Meetings’ (TC meetings) were held to present all the outputs of the Master Plan to various Stakeholders, from the National Government, Local Government, Civil Society and Private Sector. The TC meetings took place in different administrative regions between April and March.

My actions involved assisting the various meetings organized (TC Meeting, internal meetings with consultants, workshops) and preparing the consultative workshops for the Action Plan, as part of the ‘Operational Planning Phase’.

• PLANNING AND ORGANIZING THE CONSULTATIVE WORKSHOPS This involved communicating to the PMO the schedule of the workshops, the identified participants and the meeting’s agenda. The objective of the consultative workshops was to present the list of PAPs (Projects, Activities, Programs) that the experts had defined, in the previous phase, to ensure that they are aligned with the needs and expectations of the stakeholders, while gathering any additional recommendations and comments they might have.

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The team members participating in the workshops were organized by ‘thematic package’1, as each group of experts was assigned to a specific package. Guided by my internship supervisor, I was responsible for planning the workshops, specifically for the thematic package: Addressing concerns of the Informal Settlement Families (ISFs).

In conducting such task, I had to fully understand the institutional landscape and governance systems as well as study the ‘institutional Set-Up’ proposed by the Master Plan. A considerable challenge in view of the large number of stakeholders involved, and the plurality of the legal and informal/ practical2 sources of information that provided me with conflicting info sometimes. All along the internship, I continuously discovered new stakeholders and institutional relationships.

The next step was designing the workshops in terms of which stakeholders to put together around one table. As I questioned who to involve and why, I became more aware of the stakes behind these workshops, and being the one in charge, made me conscious of the strategic process behind them. I had to take into consideration the nature of the ‘actor’, its relationship with the others, and foresee the dynamics and climate that would take place during the discussions.

I was later advised to follow the stakeholders’ clusters defined by the institutional expert based on the institutional analysis, grouping therefore, the Local Government Units, the National Government agencies (NGAs), and the private and Civil Society sector, in an individual manner in different workshops. In other words, design consultations exclusively for LGUs and others exclusively for NGAs, etc.…

I was however free to include other stakeholders from other sectors and ‘clusters’ if necessary, and I managed in one case to arrange a joint meeting with a local NGO3 and Macabebe4 Local Government. In another case, members from the private sector who played an important role in one of the municipalities were invited by the team leader to join the LGUs workshop. During this internship, however, my initiatives (grouping various and different players)were limited to the case of Macabebe mainly because of time limitations: scheduling meetings, at first, only with cluster actors were necessary in some cases to avoid certain conflicting dynamics or power games that would influence the discussion, I was also involved in other missions with TRACTEBEL, and within MBSDMP, additional meetings and schedules emerged, either requested by the stakeholders or planned by the PMO. In fact, in order to be time efficient, the PMO and the Public Participation expert, planned the LGUs and NGAs workshops as joint meetings between all the thematic packages. So, I also followed a schedule where all the experts came together in one venue, to discuss with representatives from LGUs who belonged to a specific province or NGAs from a specific sector. Each group of experts handled a specific group of representatives, according to its thematic. These workshops happened on a weekly basis, in different municipalities of the three Regions covered by the Master Plan, during the last three months of the internship.

My task included also preparing meeting agendas and a list of relevant questions in advance for the workshops. The questions changed according to the stakeholders’ functions and interests.

In general the meetings were a great source of information as the discussions nourished my understanding and benefited my thesis research, especially the TC Meetings and the joint workshops designed by the PMO that provided the perfect opportunity to meet and reach out to the other team members, and experts from other sectors and therefore enlarge my point of view.

1 Thematic packages of the MBSDMO include : Pollution Load reduction, Solid Waste Management, Disaster Risk Reduction Programs and Projects, Management of Marine Protected Areas, Concerns of Informal Settlements, Metro Manila Decongestion …

2 Interview and discussion with team members and experts based on their experience and practices 3 Fostering Education & Environment for Development, Inc. (FEED) is an NGO supporting sustainable education & tree-planting/ nurturing. It organizes integrated social forestry programs, community development & livelihood initiatives, and scientific and practical research into agricultural, environmental, farming, forestry, fisheries and sustainability studies.

4 Macabebe is a 1st class municipality in the province of Pampanga

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• FACILITATING THE WORKSHOPS / MEETINGS This revolved around leading and giving a direction to the group’s discussions during the Small Group meetings or workshop and making sure that all the questions are covered, and the goal is met. It was also about ensuring that the participants are comfortable to speak and making sure everyone is invited to participate.

Being a foreigner often worked to my advantage, it helped me get their attention as they all were curious and friendly, it also helped soften the mood from the beginning as discussions often started informally, with questions about my origin or jokes, and very often also, ended with selfies!

Language however was a major drawback, both for encouraging participation and expressing ideas.

Even though many are comfortable with English, some participants were hesitant to contribute or had difficulty explaining their point, some, insisted in answering the questions in Filipino. Once, the stakeholders requested the workshop to be facilitated in Filipino. Hence, I was always with a Filipino facilitator.

Throughout the workshops, I become more familiar and comfortable with the process, I learned to adopt a flexible approach that not only focuses on respecting the list of questions but follows the conversation’s flow and allows exchange moment to happen while constantly managing time and ensuring all the questions are answered. I also learned to go around the question by asking differently, or giving examples, when getting an ‘appropriate’ answer from the stakeholders was difficult.

At the end of every consultative workshop, I was in charge of presenting the summary of our discussions and the highlights of the consultation, in front of all the groups of participants reaching up to 100 participants. This meant that I had to work on synthesizing the ideas discussed while facilitating the workshop, which required me to be quick in identifying the ideas, note them in a concise manner and structure them, for the speech to be consistent. It was a good practice for developing public speaking and synthesis skills.

The consultative workshops Agenda was similar to the ‘Atelier Pluri-Acteurs’ practiced during my ‘project workshop’ or ‘Atelier’ at EUP. For our project5 in French Guyana, we had organized a multistakeholder workshop where, as students, we had to facilitate group discussions according to our thematic before presenting our conclusion to the participants. The difference between the two experiences is the size of the groups and the scale of the territory concerned. In the LGUs workshops for MBSDMP case, we were two facilitators handling up to 20 stakeholders representing up to 6 LGUs, while in French Guyana, only one municipality was concerned. Aside from been challenging, such bigger scale was not always efficient as some participants tend to take the lead while others stay in the background regardless of our efforts to engage them.

The profile of the stakeholders involved in the LGUs workshop was also similar to my experience with EUP, as it included representatives from different ‘Local’ levels ranging from the Barangay6 Captain, officers and engineers from the municipality, representatives from the province and officers from the Department of Interior and Local Government. There was a tendency of the Barangay captains to Keep silence. It is hard to say though, if the contributing factors are the power games, the scale of the workshop or the language barrier…

5 Pistes D’intégration Urbaine, Environnementale Et Sociale De Chekepatty : Vers Un Renouvellement Depuis La Guyane Du Modèle D’éco-Quartier. 2019.

6 The smallest administrative division in the Philippines, it refers to a village or neighborhood

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Figure 5. Consultative workshop August 16, 2019

• REVISING AND RESTRUCTURING THE ACTION PLAN Among my tasks, was to write minutes of the consultative workshops featuring all the comments and recommendations from the workshops and communicate it to the PMO, regularly but in fragments after each workshop. During the last few weeks of the internship, the team organized internal meetings and a three days writing workshops to review the PAPs for each thematic package based on the inputs of the consultations and to have a general overlook at the Master Plan’s Action Plan, with crosscutting considerations between the packages.

The writing workshop offered a good space for all the experts to gather and discuss the PAPs as an integrated approach rather than sectoral proposals. Debates and discussions arouse to assess the previous actions proposed.

It was also the opportunity to tackle the uncertainties and ambiguities that the team members had. In the ISFs case, it entailed the nature of the actions proposed, their scale and the financial estimations that it implied. With The number of ISFs reaching 500 000 households in the MBSDMP coverage area, the team decided to adopt a realistic approach and to focus on the ISFs affected by other measures and actions proposed by the Master Plan such as the DRR-CCA (Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation) thematic package that will lead to the relocation of ISFs from hazard prone areas to resettlement sites. This set a new direction for the Action Plan, and the previous PAPs needed to be aligned with this new perspective.

For ISFs, in order to align the Master Plan with the existent governance system, the MBSDMP works as a framework that identifies ‘lead implementing agencies’ for its proposed actions. It was agreed that this needed to be showcased and reflected in the nature of the PAPs that would include mostly ‘soft measures’, financial and technical assistance.

I participated during the workshop, representing TRACTEBEL, as the person in charge of the ISFs package. I was part of the debates that led to the new outlook set for the Action Plan. I was also in charge of reviewing and restructuring the PAPs, based on the new vision agreed upon during the team’s discussions, and according to the inputs gathered from the stakeholders during the consultation workshops. All along, I had to pay careful attention to the vocabulary used for the formulation of the list of actions. The discourse aimed to avoid conflict and appeal to all the different

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groups, which meant that I had to keep in mind the advocacies, concerns, and interests of the stakeholders and anticipates their reactions.

As the activities focused more on the content of the Master Plan, this workshop introduced me to a different aspect of the Master Plan. It intended to build a statement and a vision based on rational reasoning and decision-making, while my previous missions were more about communication and dialogue. It was interesting also to witness how is it that, at this stage of the project, we are still revising and revisiting what has been done.

Other involvements In addition to MBSDMP I undertook several other missions: •

I was project coordinator for an innovative housing solution for the Urban Poor. (PowerHYDE by billionBricks), based on the concept of selling excess energy to provide housing. The project had several aspects including architectural, urban design and solar energy.

Figure 6. powerHYDE, a sustainable, smart, energy positive modular house @ source: ARCHIBRIO

This project introduced me to project management as I was in charge of coordinating between the experts from the Urban and Energy team of TRACTEBEL, as well as communication with the client to present the deliverables and answer comments. It greatly differed from MBSDMP’s because of the nature of the missions and the type of the client that belonged to the private sector in this case.

•

Preparation of Expression of Interests and participation in the formulation of technical proposals when a bid opportunity came up. I therefore became familiar with bidding processes and requirements.

•

Business Development activities including preparation of BD materials and presentation to introduce the company, its products and services; meeting with clients; participation in workshop to define a business strategy for business development work depending on the company’s capabilities and market opportunities. These activities contributed to my public speaking and argumentation / marketing skills, but most importantly, I managed to build an image of the important role that private sector plays in urban developments in the Philippines.

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Link to academic background and professional orientation Working on the ISFs thematic package for Manila Bay Sustainable Development plan, was a perfect follow-up for my academic learning at EUP. During the internship, I was put at the centre of the urban, social and institutional issues regarding Informal settlements that I was already familiar with: rapid urbanization and housing backlog, land tenure issues, brown and green agendas, basic services provision for the urban poor, participation and bottom –up approaches… to only name a few.

While the MBSDMP was a contextualised case study and example to those aspects covered by the program at EUP, my academic knowledge was a constant reference for my on-site observations and enabled me to have a standpoint, awareness and a vision of what I am witnessing.

Master 2 ‘Urbanisme et expertise international, option Villes des Suds’ at EUP allowed me to break free from a narrow practical and technical perspective and mode of thinking linked to my background as a student of architecture and urban design. It introduced me, among other things, to notions of social accessibility, institutional capacity and governance systems that I was able to experience and develop even more during the internship, mainly because I was confronted to it on a daily basis, while undertaking my missions. In fact, the institutional aspect was one of the most important parts of the experience that I chose to further research it and transform it into a subject for my dissertation.

After two semesters at EUP, my expectations in terms of outcomes and missions shifted from physical results and design to wider social and institutional considerations, but the main question that remained at the end was what I can bring as an urban planner to this situation. My missions and thesis research around MBSDMP provided me with a part of the answer, even though it is still too soon and my experience is still limited to get the full picture.

This continuity, between the two academic and professional contexts, also shed light on certain practices that I was discovering for the first time at EUP, the consultative workshops mentionedabove are an example of that. It therefore allowed me to better understand and become more conscious of what I had learned.

Throughout the internship it was difficult to keep and maintain a critical thinking. At first, I joined with a fresh mind questioning and analyzing, but as I became familiar with the project and the information it was difficult to disconnect and withdraw myself from the stream of the project, especially since I was part of the team developing it. On that note, I would like to also highlight the share of team work that MBSDMP required.

ISFs concerns fall under a general and integrated vision of the Master Plan as a whole, which implies coordination with a large team of experts was a necessity. As previously described, it took place in the form of meetings and internal workshops to discuss various processes, results and statements. This only proves team work as a constant characteristic of Urban Planning and represented a scale-up from the frequent team-work at EUP. On the other hand, the professional context of a consulting firm was different from the previous academic experience. The main factors, in my point of view, are the fact that deadlines are linked to profit or loss, and client relationships are more authoritative for the same reason. These factors meant that I felt more constraints as project management was the priority for efficiency and profitability.

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These last aspects, in addition to the diverse and various activities and projects that I undertook, including strategic planning, business development, bid preparations, and project coordination widened my perspective of urban planners’ work and possibilities in the context of consulting firms.

II - THESIS Report Introduction Rationale During my internship with TRACTEBEL, I was involved in the Manila Bay Sustainable Development Master Plan, and my missions as described in the internship report, required me to develop an understanding of the institutional Set-up regarding urban issues in the country. Thus, the motivation to work on Urban Governance as a general topic of my thesis came from the desire, the curiosity and the necessity to study in more detail this multi-stakeholder system, by analyzing each party, its contributions within its territory, and their overall interactions.

As I started to build a general idea about the institutional arrangements and dynamics, I also begun to situate the Manila Bay Sustainable Development Master Plan in this governance context. In other words, as I become aware of the institutional complexity and plurality that the MBSDMP faces, I started questioning the practices, initiatives, and choices that were made by the experts, in order to overcome such challenge. The leading questions of this thesis, centered-around institutional arrangements, planning processes, and MBDSMP’s approach in relation to its institutional context, were triggered by the nature of my missions and my standpoint as a member of the experts’ team.

However, the MBSDMP, as a general development framework for the area, tackles a wide range of aspects including Ecosystem protection, Disaster Risk Management, ISFs (Informal Settlements Families), reclamation and traffic congestion. It also covers a large area including municipalities and cities from 4 regions (NCR, Region III, Region IV-A, Region V). In a fragmented institutional context such as the one in Manila Bay, this complexifies the stakeholders profiling and the institutional framework analysis even at a smaller local scale. Therefore, the following content will exclusively focus on the ISFs as a thematic area. This thematic choice was obviously the most relevant to my missions within TRACTEBEL for the Manila Bay Master Plan and to my academic background at EUP. Now that I have established that dissertation will work on the MBSDMP’s approach to deal with institutional challenges regarding ISFs, I can extract three main components that form the context and the starting point of this study: the Manila Bay Sustainable Development Master Plan, the urban context of ISFs, and the institutional context around Informal Settlements. In the first part, I individually describe each of these aspects in order to give a full understanding of the context of this dissertation. After individually presenting and analyzing each aspect, I establish links and interconnections that define the issue of this paper (Thesis Statement) and generate questions that the rest of the study is centered around.

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The objective here is to assess the MBSDMP’s approach around this set of questions, based on the main issue identified. In order to do so I draw on relevant academic literature to better understand the stakes and extract guidelines for a solid assessment and analysis. I then move to the application of my theoretical findings on the processes undertaken by the MBSDMP, in general and for a specific case and location. For demonstration purposes, I chose as case studies coastal local government units belonging to two different regions (Region III and NCR) in order to give a comparative analysis and to better showcase the different Institutional dynamics within the Manila Bay Basin.

Methodology My missions during the internships provided me with most of the resources needed to conduct this study. The workshops and consultative meetings that I animated were a great opportunity to gather information and build a general understanding of the issue :the debates and discussions that I followed as well as the informal direct discussions that I had with the attendees presented me with new ideas and leads and allowed me to work on the stakeholders profiling as I got to understand the objective of each actor, it’s resources, responsibilities and competences as well as how he interacts with the others.

Access to MBSDMP documentation and publications, in addition to the team meetings, were also a good source of information that allowed me to better understand the strategy of the Master Plan and the circumstances that led to its formulation as it is today.

However, I also had to detach myself from the context of the MBSDMP to be able to construct my own perspective. In order to do so, I organized a site visit to the slums and conduct interviews through which I was able to gather specific data and reach a wider range of stakeholders. The added value of such activities is related to the fact that they are conducted in a different setting from the MBSDMP which triggers different answers and reactions. Due to the limited time of the study, I focused my interview choices on the stakeholders involved in the case studies and the Civil Society as I less interacted with this sector due to the timeline and planning of the workshops that started with the LGUs. In parallel, I consulted the academic literature to build a solid theoretical base that helped me pay attention, identify the processes used by the experts and structure my analysis of the approach.

This was a back and forth process where I compared my notes of the workshops and meetings to the academic ideas while simultaneously basing my interviews and questions on those ideas.

The frequency of such events along the duration of the internship allowed me to absorb all the information and become familiar with the issues, most importantly, I was able to witness how the approach of the Master Plan evolves, the short-term impact it had, and the reactions it caused.

I must mention however, that the language barrier was the biggest challenges I faced while conducting these activities. I had no problem communicating with the Government or the NGOs using English, but when it comes to the residents, the People or representatives from a smaller administrative scale such as the Barangays, the local language was used even during the meetings and workshops.

I had to depend on translation which was not always available.

The time limit of this study (6 months) does not allow me to comprehensively assess the Master Plan’s processes that are still ongoing nor fully cover all the institutional dynamics and relations. This paper is therefore limited to the information that I was able to gather and what I have witnessed during that period.

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Part 1- Context of the study Introduction This part presents at first the key features of the Manila Bay Sustainable Development Master Plan in the first section ‘1.A - Introducing Manila Bay Sustainable Development Plan’. It aims to give an overview of how did the MBSDMP come to place, its coverage and timeline, and the team’s organization. It also gives a general idea of the Master Plan’s representation of the ISFs issue through its different ‘statements’.

It also serves as an introduction to the Informal Settlements context in the Philippines in general, and Manila Bay specifically. The second Section called ‘1.B -Urbanization and Informal Settlements’ gives an urban and social perspective of the issue while the third one ‘1.C -Institutional and legal context’ analyzes the institutional landscape.

The sections are first presented individually in a disconnected manner, they form fragments of the general context of the study that I then link and confront in the ‘ Thesis Statement’ to define the issue of this paper.

1. A - Introducing Manila Bay Sustainable Development Master Plan a. BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES On 2016, a team of Dutch experts completed a report summarizing the challenges and opportunities for change in Manila Bay. As a step to move forward, they also drafted the methodologies and Terms of Reference (TOR) outline for a Manila Bay Master Plan. This was the first building block that led toward the formulation of the MBSDMP after funds for the conduct of the study were sourced. From the start, the Dutch “Deltares”7 was proposed as the leading firm while Local Consulting Firm (LCF) were contracted through a bidding process.

The project aims to formulate ‘’an inclusive and sustainable Master Plan and a supporting institutional framework to provide a vision for the entire development within the Bay area.’’ It is intended to guide decision-makers in the assessment and approval of projects and investments to be implemented in the Manila Bay. The MBSDMP aims to achieve the strategic management and development goals below: • inclusive growth, • ecosystem protection, • climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, • water quality improvement, and • upgrading informal settlements.

The Master Plan is set to contribute in achieving the national development objectives under the ‘Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2017-20228’ and the country’s long-term vision ‘AmBisyon

7 Deltares is a Dutch independent institute for applied research in the field of water, subsurface, and infrastructure. The group is specialized in flood risk, adaptive planning, environment, water and subsurface resources, and infrastructure in Delta areas.

8 PDP 2017-2022 represents the first medium-term plan anchored on AmBisyon 2040. It seeks to promote more inclusive growth, a high-trust and resilient society, and a globally competitive economy..

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2040’9.

b. COVERAGE OF THE MBSDMP The MBSDMP covers the Manila Bay Basin, focusing on the Manila Bay and the immediate coastal zone, while including a larger catchment area as the influence sphere composed of river systems contributing to discharge in Manila Bay. The Manila Bay Basin, including the bay area, has a total area of 19,754 square kilometers with a coastline of 459 kilometers. From an administrative and institutional point of view, this covers in total 4 regions, 14 provinces, and 203 Municipalities and Cities.

The Manila Bay is amongst the country’s most significant areas. Besides its cultural and historical value, about a quarter of the Philippines population resides within the Manila Bay catchment area that generates some 53% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP)(MBSDMP - Situation Atlas, 2018).

Figure 1. MBSDMP Coverage Map @ Source: MBSDMP 9 AmBisyon 2040 is a long-term vision and aspirations for the country in the next 25 years. It sets goals and prospects how the country will be by 2040.

c. TIMELINE The project is 30 months, a duration within which the team has to prepare and present the final Reports by 2020. It is divided into two phases (Figure 2).

Figure 2.MBSDMP Timeline and phases. @Source: MBSDMP (Modified)

Situational analysis focuses on the description of the current state and conditions of Manila Bay and coastal areas (i.e., water and habitat quality, productivity). Using the results of the situational analysis as primary reference, a combination of key strategies was identified and assessed based on responsiveness to priority issues and concerns identified by the Master Plan and validated through a multi-stakeholder consultative process. The Operational Planning Phase consists of series of meetings and sessions with stakeholders on different levels, to prepare guidelines for the Action Plan and an Investment Plan with Budget Requirements.

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The MBSDMP will have an outlook ending in 2040, guiding therefore the actions and developments for the next 20 years (starting from its completion in 2020 until 2040). It coincides with the timeframe of Ambisyon 2040, while Intermediate milestones (representing goals and actions) in 2022 and 2030 will be set to coincide with the end of the current PDP in 2022 and the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

d. TEAM STRUCTURE AND COMPOSITION

By January 2018, NEDA engaged the Joint Venture of three Local Consulting Firms 10(including TRACTEBEL) to work to work with the Dutch Expert Team (DET) in the formulation of the MBSDMP.

The advisory board is composed of: Steering Committee comprised of NEDA (client and beneficiary of the consultancy services) through its Technical Board Committee on Infrastructure (INFRACOMTB).

Technical Committee composed of various stakeholders including representatives from the Philippines public sector (NGAs, mandamus agencies,11 LGUs…) and representatives from the Dutch Government).

The technical Committee is tasked to review the inputs from the DET and/or LCF before handing it to the Steering Committee for approval.

Figure 3.Team Structure. @ Source: TOR (modified)

The DET lead by Deltares carry out the supervisory and advisory project management role together with the LCF deputy team leader.

The DET besides experts from Deltares includes additional independent experts and partners to provide the knowledge and experience of the Netherlands for the planning and programming process.

It forms combined teams with the LCF to carry out the strategic and action planning. e. Addressing concerns of ISFs The Master Plan identifies the ‘unregulated’ housing development in coastal and river areas as a key challenge in Manila Bay. Looking into how the Master Plan addresses ISFs and how the issue is actually stated in the Master Plan’s documents gives an idea of how the Master Plan positions itself and orients its proposed actions: The Master Plan strongly emphasizes the link between Informal Settlements and the natural environment. First, it considers ISFs as a source of pollution that strongly affects the water quality and ecosystems of Manila Bay: ‘’The increasing settlement and unrelenting increase in population in the area, however, has affected the natural systems drastically ‘’(MBSDMP -Inception Report, 10 OIDCI, Tractebel Inc. and UPLBFI 11 Thirteen government agencies directed by the supreme court to clean up, rehabilitate, and preserve Manila Bay, and restore and maintain its waters to SB level to make them fit for swimming, skin-diving, and other forms of contact recreation.

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2018 : 16). Then it looks at the issue from a resilience and disaster risk reduction perspective stating that ISFs living in danger zones are the most affected by the Manila Bay sustainability and stresses their vulnerability to climate change and sea level rise. This discourse, strongly shaped by environmental considerations, translates into a list of recommendations proposing a comprehensive approach addressing not only the affordability of housing but also safe and secure measures including relocation in case of danger zones and easements, access to transportation and provision of waste management, water supply and other services.

Below is an indicative list of general measures proposed by the Master Plan (MBSDMP – Strategy Building Report, 2018 : 41). It consists of a selection of measures presented by the MBSMDP reports that serve illustration purposes. The basis of the selection is the aim to showcase the various aspects tackled by the measures and how the integrated approach mentioned-above is translated into recommendations.

Engagement of the private sector and civil society to produce and manage affordable, new homes for Informal Settler Families.

Strictly enforce easements12 (under the Water Code and related laws) in clearly demarcated zones in coastal and riparian areas.

Provide employment opportunities or access to employment opportunities as well as better social services in resettlement sites.

Capacity -building of people’s organizations, community-based organizations, and homeowners’ associations to engage more in ISF housing.

From this list we can see that the Master Plan attempts to engage different sectors while tackling the housing components as well as environmental and livelihood concerns.

12 The water Code defines the “easements of public use in the interest of recreation, navigation, floatage, fishing and salvage, that shall be observed throughout the entire lengths of the banks of rivers and streams and the shores of seas and lakes, as applicable: three (3) meters in urban areas, twenty (20) meters in agricultural areas and forty (40) meters in forest areas.” (MBSDMP – Strategy Building Report, 2018 : 41)

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1.B - Urbanization and Informal Settlements While the first part presented at the end how the MBSDMP views the Informal Settlement problem and how it translates into a comprehensive approach integrating environmental and social concerns, this section describes and presents the problem from an urban and social perspective.

a. GENERAL CONTEXT Urbanization is one of the main drivers of economic growth for any country. In the Philippines, cities generate 70% of the GDP, of which 36% is generated in Metro Manila alone.13 Nevertheless, if not well planned and managed, it can lead to inequality and exclusion, which in this case, applies to the Philippines where keeping pace with rapid urbanization is a real challenge.

The Philippines is one of the fastest urbanizing countries in the East Asia and Pacific region. Today, half of the country’s population lives in cities, and by 2050 the urban population is expected to rise to 84%.1These fast-growing dynamics coupled with undeniable structural issues and institutional shortcomings, resulted, among many other problems, in the proliferation of Informal settlements.

Figure 4. Evolution of built up area in Metro Manila. @ Source: MBSDMP

Attracted by the job opportunities that the concentration of economic activities creates, urban dwellers that migrate to the city are faced with limited appropriate housing offers. Low-income families are pushed to depend on informal housing. In the NCR, 3 million people are estimated to live in Informal Settlements1 (about 1 in 4 residents) counting for 39% of the total in the country. In Region III, their number was reported to be 82,000 households14 in 2014.

b. THE EXAMPLE OF TONDO SLUMS No analysis of the Master Plan’s approach can be complete or meaningful without linking it to the ground realities and the specific context of slums in Manila Bay. This chapter serves that same purpose by choosing to understand the Tondo slums in Manila City as an illustration of the ground realities and concerns of ISFs. It also gives a brief idea about the evolution of the national vision and strategies to address informal settlements and the influence of international organizations, even 13World Bank Group, Singh and Gadgil, 2017 14MBSDMP – Upgrading Informal Settlements Report, 2018

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though it is not the main issue of our paper.

The site visit came at an earlier stage of the study, and Tondo, being one of the oldest, poorest, and most ‘’famous Slums’’ in the country, was an interesting option to visit. Many questions came to mind: How far do the Informal Settlement issues go back in time? What measures have been adopted to address the problem? What are the living conditions on site? In order to get the full picture, I had to understand the historical layers and interventions that have led to the present situation, but most importantly I had to speak to the people who are mostly concerned. This site visit allowed me to directly engage with the residents of Tondo Slum, witness their daily life and hear their side of the story.

During the Spanish Era, Tondo was left out as all the developments happened at the South Part of Pasig River (Intramuros). During World War 2, when the Japanese and American arrived, they encamped themselves in the North Side of Pasig River (Tondo) and bombed the South side (Intramuros). So Tondo, the less destroyed, was the place to go after the war. All of the residents that were escaping the poverty brought by war ended up settling in this area. This was the beginning of the densification of Tondo and the origin of the Informal Settlements (Aljazeera 2014). Over the years, migration caused more people to settle in Tondo, but going back in time shows and proves that most dwellers living in Tondo Slum are long-term residents. Consistently, a World Bank survey showed that a majority (over 58.6%) are long-term residents who have lived in Metro Manila for more than a decade, while only 24.3% moved less than five years (World Bank Group, 2017).

With the help of Architect Lito and the Canossa-Tondo Children Foundation, I was able to visit the Informal Settlements in Tondo. Among the sixteen districts of the municipality of Manila, it is considered as the largest in terms of area and population. Often referred to as Manila’s largest slum, it is also the most densely populated District.15The visit included stops in ‘Barangay16101’ and ‘Barangay 105’ and showcased different cases and situations of Informal settlements.

Figure 5. Tondo Location Map. @Source: Personal Resource

15 Urbanization as well as the Lina Law which favors squatters over land-owners has resulted in Tondo being one of the most densely populated areas in the world. It was estimated at 71,263 pax/km2 based on 2015 Census by Philippines statistics Authority 16Barangay is the smallest administrative entity in the Philippines

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Figure 6. Barangays 101 & Barangay 105 Location Map. @Source: Personal Resource

Barangay 101 hosts several Affordable Housing projects, the latest one, operational since 2017, is the ’Urban Deca Home Homes Manila’, a mixed-use development including 13 medium-rise buildings, developed by one of the country’s largest mass housing developers (8990 Holdings Inc.)17. Our visit however focused on ‘The Katuparan Condominium’ a 1991 Housing project by NHA (National Housing Authority). In the span of 28 years many things have changed, and this project is the perfect illustration of the evolution that the area has witnessed.

Back in 1991, NHA built socialized housing and rights to occupy the houses were delivered to the residents of the squatter area near the port in exchange of a monthly amortization.

However, as the family grew, more space was needed to accommodate new members and most of the families started doing house extensions (See Figure 7 and 8).

With the lack of maintenance, and the poor condition of the sanitary, plumbing and waste collection facilities, these changes led to unhealthier and dangerous living conditions.

Since 2010, the buildings have been declared unsafe for residency, and currently, Manila City Hall issued a demolition order on the buildings after Department of Public Works and Highways inspection showed its vulnerability to natural disasters18.

Figure 7. Current exterior extensions in ‘The Katuparan Condominium’ Project. @ Source: Personal Resource

17 Mass Housing developer behind ‘’Urban Deca Home Homes Manila. https://business.inquirer.net/228522/tondo-on-the-rise 18 https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/03/19/18/nha-to-relocate-tondo-vitas-housing-project-residents

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Figure 8. Current exterior extensions in ‘The Katuparan Condominium’ Project. @ Source: Personal Resource

These declarations have been followed by a series of relocations starting 2012, with resettlements sites located in different provinces and municipalities (Cavite City, Naic, Caloocan City…).

Off-City relocation wasn’t well received by the families, who along with residents from other relocation sites, joined a protest action outside the National Housing Authority office. According to Ernesto, a college criminology student who welcomed us in his 24 sqm home in ‘Katuparan Condominium ‘where he lives with his family of six members: “I cannot move elsewhere, here everything is accessible, I can go to school, and I have access to the facilities.‘’ Ernesto, Resident of Katuparan Condominium, site visit on 17th August 2019.

Indeed, as mentioned by the president of ‘8990 Holdings Inc.’ when describing Tondo: “It also has a thriving economy composed mostly of small businesses and is highly accessible to Divisoria, the Manila ports and nearby cities in Northern Luzon.’’ (President of ‘8990 Holdings Inc. in Philippine Daily Inquirer 2017) From my visit to the condominium, I also noticed the lively shops and markets present in the area, the covered basketball courts, the schools, and the utilities provision. Even though sanitation and waste collection are lacking, water supply is provided by Maynilad 19and residents have access to electricity either by paying monthly bills or through ‘’Curriente Load’’ (Figure 9 &10). The residents earn their Income either through small business or commercial activities in the area, small jobs in the port and garbage collection, while others manage to work in other areas of Metro Manila. The sense of belonging - since many have been living in the area for two to four generations - and the livelihood opportunities are behind the family’s attachment to the site. These same factors encouraged more people migrating to the city to settle in squatter areas between the buildings, along the road and along Estero De Vitas river while connecting to the utilities provided to the Housing Project.

19 Water and wastewater services provider of cities and municipalities that form the West Zone of the Greater Manila Area in the Philippines.

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Figure 9. Alleys at ‘The Katuparan Condominium’ showcasing sanitation issues. @ Source: Personal Resource Figure 10. Shops established between the housing units and the road. @ Source: Personal Resource

Across the road, Barangay 105 hosts ‘Happy Land’ a major squatting area over reclaimed government lands. The residents occupy inside and in between abandoned industrial buildings. ‘Happy Land’ is one of the poorest and most densely populated areas in Manila. The whole area is occupied by informal dwellings built by scavengers who were forced to move after the closure of the Smokey Mountain20Landfill. Long after Smokey Mountain, garbage collection is still a major activity and source of income for the families in the area, employing many children who spend their days working instead of going to school. (Figure 11 and 12)

Figure 11. Happy Land Slum. @ Source: Personal Resource 20 A landfill which served Metro Manila and employed thousands of people from around 1960 until its closure in the late 1990s.

The dumpsite served as a symbol of poverty even at least two decades since its closure.

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Figure 12. A child working as a scavengersin ‘Happy Land’. @ Source: Personal Resource

Atte M. who guided us through the visit moved to the neighborhood whit her family at a young age.

Now she lives with her husband, three children and siblings in less than 24 sqm. Regardless of the tough living conditions she does not imagine living elsewhere. She works at the foundation21 which allows her children to enroll in it’s school program. Similarly to ‘Barangay 101’, here the small alleys offer small businesses, shops and cyber-cafes where children and youth gather, you are most likely also to see women stocking water and children taking a shower in the streets.

The national government has a plan of demolishing the abandoned industrial buildings and relocation of residents to resettlement sites in Cavite and Bulacan (Region IV-A& Region III respectively).

Relocation seems to be the current government’s approach to Tondo Informal settlement in both examples above (‘Happy Land’ and ’The Katuparan Condominium’). However, the site just in front of ’Happy Land’ in Barangay 105, is an example of the slum upgrading approach embraced by the Philippines in the 1970’s.

As a part of the ‘Tondo Foreshore Development Project’, funded by the World Bank in the 1970’s, a re-blocking22 process was adopted to rationalize the physical environment and keep relocation to an absolute minimum. The project involved provision of land tenure and provision of services to families in place (water supply, human waste disposal, surface water drainage, paved footpaths and streets, schools and clinics). (See Figure 13)

21Canossa-Tondo Children Foundation, Inc, which helped me organize the visit 22 The process of preparing a subdivision layout as a basis for providing access and other services as well as establishing land tenure and individual plot boundaries.

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Figure 13. Current streets and houses typologies at the ‘Tondo Foreshore Development’ area. @Source: Personal Resource

My aim is not to assess or evaluate the upgrading project, but rather to give a snapshot of government strategies and situate them in time. The project marks a shift in the government’s approach, as stated in the World Bank Report of 1977: ‘’Perhaps the most important contribution of the Project is the impact it has had on Government policy. (…) Following an initial period in which much of its resources were devoted to relocation of squatters from drainage canals and other waterways in metropolitan Manila, the National Housing Authority (NHA) has established and is actively expanding a nationwide program of slum upgrading. (…) On June 11, 1977 two Presidential Letters of Instruction (LOI), which carry the force of law, were signed to establish slum upgrading as national policy.’’(World Bank, 1977 : 5)

CONCLUSION This part served the purpose of illustrating the context of ISFs and gave a ‘grounded’ perspective of the issue. It also presented three different cases representing different interventions undertaken by the Public sector: A medium-rise housing relocation project (The Katuparan Condominium, Barangay 101), demolishment and off-site relocation (Happy Land, Barangay 105), and an on-site re-blocking project (Tondo Foreshore Development Project, Barangay 105). The last example (Tondo Foreshore Development Project) is referred to as a success story that marked a shift in government policies by introducing a collaborative and participatory approach to the government’s interventions. I will often mention this project in the coming section where I study the institutional system around ISFs.

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1.C - Institutional and Legal Context This section is composed of a descriptive part (1.B.a Stakeholder Mapping) that identifies and maps the stakeholders that contribute to the Informal Settlements sector. As a conclusion to the first one, a second part titled ‘1.B.b Plurality, fragmentation and diversity: an institutional reality for Manila Bay ISFs issues’ extracts the characteristics of the overall institutional landscape specific to Manila Bay ISFs.

a. STAKEHOLDER MAPPING This section intent is to give an idea about the stakeholders involved regarding ISFs issues, their respective responsibilities and how they come to play a role in the ISFs processes. To avoid confusion it is necessary to clarify, first, how this section was organized.

There are various stakeholders that can be clustered, based on the on the scale of their actions and their territorial jurisdictions, as ‘International stakeholders’, ‘National stakeholders’ and ‘Local stakeholders’. They can also be classified into sectors or ‘institutional circles’ : public sector, private sector, and civil society. However, all these stakeholders can get involved in one common ‘territory’ or ‘level’ of action. It can be referred to as the interventional and operational scale where various organizations (International, National, and Local), and sectors (Civil, private, public) directly implement their projects and programs. It is therefore, at this ‘level’, that relations are most apparent and best shown. ‘’It is no longer possible to understand material places and social nodes as ‘the local’, the ‘subregional’, the ‘regional’, etc., positioned in a one-dimensional hierarchy of scales. Instead, ‘placings’ are produced through the dynamics of relational webs that connect the place of one node with others, near and far, and locate it in times of memory as well as future potentialities.’’(Healey, 2007 :277) To best demonstrate these relations, I make of that ‘territory of action’ my starting point and the frame where the stakeholders’ mapping is operated. I therefore, do not follow a one-dimensional organization, even thought I still group stakeholders into sectors and levels.

In other words, I apply sectoral and hierarchal classifications to the ‘stakeholders’, but it does not apply to their ‘actions’ that co-exist, cross and connect at one ‘level’. The following figure (Figure 14) showcases these interconnections and relations. Throughout the rest of this chapter I will explain it and illustrate it. It is also the base upon which this chapter is organized.

(See figure 14) The previous section (1.B.b The example of Tondo Slums) presented the ‘gound’ realities and ‘daily life’ aspect of Informal settlements, it also gave hints about community-based approaches and collaborative processes that involved the Civil Society. I will therefore start this chapter’s mapping by the stakeholders who belong to the civil society sector. I will afterwards cover the levels that figure 14 features.

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Figure 14. Stakeholders relational Webs. @ Source: Personal Resource

DHSUD Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development DILG Department of Interior and Local Governments DSWD Department of Social Welfare and Development HDMF Home Development Mutual Fund ISFs sInformal Settlement Families KSAs Key Shelter Agencies LHB Local Housing Board NAPC National Anti-Poverty Commission NHA National Housing Authority NHMFC National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation NTWG National Technical Working Group PCUP Philippine Commission for the Urban Poor LGUs Local Government Units POs People Organizations   SHFC Social Housing Finance Corporation 33

• CIVIL SOCIETY AND ACADEME This part tackles the Civil Society Organizations CSOs which includes NGOs and organized groups of people representing the Informal Settlements residents in this case (referred to as People Organizations POs). During the time I spent working on Manila Bay Master Plan (MBSDMP), I came across two types of NGOs: implementing NGOs like ‘Gawad Kalinga’ involved in constructing social housing and creating community-oriented developments, and other NGOs who are more on the political aspect. The latter category includes NGOs like Urban Poor Associates, Philsa (Philippines Service Agency)…who played and continue to play an important role in mobilizing and organizing the POs so that they can speak for themselves, while creating opportunities to link them with other spheres such as the government and the academic world.

The Philippines is recognized as a leader in participatory governance and the role of NGOs in community organization and empowering people goes back in time to before the 70’s when, mobilized by international methodologies23 and ideas, there were already local dynamics pushing for people’s voice and organized people representation. These ideas first came to place through the ‘’Tondo Foreshore Development Project’’. In the 70’s people couldn’t confront the Marcos Administration, so supported by partner NGOs in Washington, they pressured the World Bank to provide funds for the upgrading of Tondo slums instead of the government’s plan to displace 50 000 people.

As mentioned in the previous chapters of this study, the community participation in this project was a big shift and it set the base for what is called People’s Plan.24 Today, the People’s Plan Concept has been established by the new Department of Human Settlement and Urban Development (DHSUD) as part of its IRRs (Implementing Rules and Regulations), which is considered as an achievement attributed to the NGOs and PCUP representatives who worked to change the draft of the IRRs and engaged in a series of consultations with the DHSUD to incorporate their modifications.

The active mobilization of the Civil Society sphere that seems to demand for more power and involvement in the matters that concern them the most, is something for the MBSDMP to take into consideration, as it is an important factor and element of the institutional landscape that will affect the perception and implementation of the Master Plan’s ideas.

• PRIVATE SECTOR With president Duterte, the current government policy has shifted from PPP to rely mainly on government resources; these conditions do not encourage private-sector involvement in Informal Settlers issues. According to the consultative workshop that I had with LGU representatives, private sector engagement, in resettlement or housing interventions, is limited to landowners from which the LGU buys the land. Some LGUs also benefit from the ‘Balanced Housing Development Program’ (RA No. 10884 dated 10 June 2016) that requires developers to allocate 20% of their development to socialized Housing.

Some mass housing developers are targeting Informal Settlements neighborhoods to develop their projects25 recognizing the social potential and market values of such sites. But most of these developments have high prices that Urban Poor living in Informal Settlements cannot afford.

The current engagement of the private sector seems to be limited and insufficient or inappropriate to address the issues of ISFs. Nevertheless, public policies such as the ‘Balanced Housing Development Program’ seem to recognize the potential that the private sector represents, if correctly involved.

The MBSDMP follows the same directions as it pushes - as shown in chapter ‘1. A. e Addressing 23 Saul Alinsky method of conflict-confrontation developed in Chicago 24 Concept referring to upgrading / socialized housing plans produced by the residents of the slums through POs 25 ‘’Urban Deca Home Homes Manila” mentioned in Part 1, Chapter 1

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concerns of ISFs’ - for more engagement of the private sector in the provision of affordable housing.

• PUBLIC SECTOR Public Sector entities that are locally active to implement projects related to Informal Settlements are classified in the coming text as follow: • Local Government Units as ‘Local’ stakeholders • National stakeholders that represent the National Government: • Key Shelter Agencies • Executive Departments (DHSUD and DILG) At the end, I also include other relevant stakeholders referred to as ‘Mandamus agencies’ that were commonly identified by the Supreme Court and given responsibilities regarding ISFS. They fall under both the two categories above, and if they are presented separately here, it is because of the exceptional circumstances that the legal requirements of the Supreme Court constitute.

Local Stakeholders Local Government Units (LGUs) Figure 15. Administrative divisions of the Philippines. @ Source: Personal Resource

Under the Local Government Code and the Urban Development and Housing Act (RA 7279 of 1992), the municipalities and Barangay are directly responsible to take action to address ISFs issues.

Barangays are responsible for the prevention and control of the proliferation of squatters in the Barangay, they are required to maintain and regularly update a registry of Barangay Inhabitants covering specific information on ISFs. The municipalities on the other hand are responsible for the following: • Land Inventory and land acquisitions for socialized housing project and resettlements sites • Provision of basic services and facilities • Formulation of Local shelter plans, an eight years plans that defines realistic estimates of

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housing needs, suitable land for housing, resources needed for the provision of basic services in potential housing project areas and identify affordable options for its constituents. It also contains the main shelter strategies and a corresponding action plan which sets out the responsibilities and time frame for implementation.

• Inventory identifying and mapping ISFs • Provide socialized Housing and subject persons and entities occupying danger areas to eviction • Supervision of Barangays to ensure that they act within their scope of functions and power Two different levels of LGUs, Barangays and municipalities, are directly concerned with ISFs issues and seem to share a big part of responsibilities ranging from the formulation and preparation of shelter plans and strategies, to the provision of land, housing, and basic services, in addition to monitoring, supervision and eviction. They are major players at the local level, and the wide range of actions that they are required to undertake regarding ISFs, entails that they enter in various relations with the other ‘local’ stakeholders, such as coordination with the private sector and civil society for land and housing provision or conflict and opposition from Informal Settlers regarding monitoring and eviction. (See figure 14)

National stakeholders This section includes National Government agencies (NGAs) and Executive departments which mandates are related to Informal Settlements. NGAs are Government-owned and -controlled corporation under the office of the president, created via Presidential Decrees.

Key Shelter Agencies KSAs KSAs refer to the National Government agencies (NGAs) that are specific to housing. EO 9026 identified the Key Shelter Agencies27 to ensure the accomplishment of the National Shelter Program and defined their respective mandates. They consist of: • National Housing Authority NHA’s main task is the development and implementation of Housing programs (PD 757, dated 31stJuly1975). It functions as a production and financing arm in housing (RA 11201, dated 12nd February 2019). Its mandates under existing laws include: • NHA is mandated as the sole national government agency engaged in direct shelter production focusing on the housing needs of the lowest 30% of the urban income-earners through slum upgrading, squatter relocation, development of sites and services and construction of corehousing units. (EO90) • Provide technical assistance for private developers undertaking low-cost housing projects. (EO 90, dated 17 December 1986) • Provide technical and other forms of assistance to local government units (LGUs) in the implementation of their housing programs. (RA 7279 of 1992)28 • Undertake identification, acquisition, and disposition of lands for socialized housing; and to undertake relocation and resettlement of families with local government units. (RA 7279 of 26Executive order 90 (17 December 1986) identifying the government agencies essential for the national shelter program and defining their mandates, creating the housing and urban development coordinating council, rationalizing funding sources and lending mechanisms for home mortgages and for other purposes 27NHA National Housing Authority, HDMF Home Development Mutual Fund, NHMFC National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation, Social Housing Finance Corporation (SHFC).

28 Known as Urban Development Housing Act

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1992) • Development and implementation of a comprehensive and integrated housing development and resettlement program; determination and development of government lands suitable for housing; and ensuring the sustainability of socialized housing. (EO 195, dated 13 August1994) As explained above, NHA is directly involved in the construction of socialized Housing for Informal Settlements. I would like to highlight that NHA is only responsible for housing provision while land identification and acquisition is a responsibility of the LGUs, in addition to basic services and facilities provision.

Based on my discussion with LGU representatives and Informal settlements dwellers, the major problem in today’s resettlements sites is the absence of basic services (Water Supply, sanitation..), facilities (schools, community facilities..) and livelihood alternatives for the Inhabitants.

Most Informal Settlers that initially chose to be relocated in some of these relocation sites ended up going back to the squatter areas while some municipalities have vacant socialized housing developed

by NHA. As we will see later, this situation is mainly related to the fragmented and sectorized approach for socialized Housing and resettlement / Upgrading, where each institution has specific responsibility with no transversal, horizontal approach.

In conclusion, NHA is one of the ‘National’ stakeholders that ‘locally’ implement housing developments and projects. Besides been an execution body at the local level, it also assists both technically and financially, other stakeholders in terms of housing. As NGAs, it is affiliated to an executive department (DHSUD in this case, see Figure 14 ) whitregulating functions, it therefore serves also as an intermediate monitoring body with regards to other implementing stakeholders (LGUs, CSOs, private sector).

• Other Key shelter agencies involved in ISFs issues This includes the NHMFC National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation, and its subsidiary the Social Housing Finance Corporation (SHFC), which are in charge of various Housing Loan Programs and affordable financing systems (Abot-Kaya Pabahay Fund Development Loan Program (AKPF – DLP) , Community Mortgage Program, (CMP)High Density Housing (HDH)…).

Different from NHA, these NGAs do not independently execute projects but rather provide financial assistance to other implementing stakeholders. Nevertheless, for the MBSDMP, they are important actors to be taken into consideration because of their already established connections to other stakeholders and the possibility to leverage on their resources. (See figure 14 ) Executive departments • Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) On November 2019, the congress approved the creation of the DHSUD which would merge the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB), and take over the two former agencies’ functions.29 The Department will be the main planning and policy-making, regulatory, program coordination, and performance monitoring entity for all housing, human settlement and urban development concerns.

Among the attached agencies of the DHSUD are the Key Shelter Agencies (KSA) described above.

29Before consolidating the two agencies, the HULRB used to determine the general guidelines for land use planning of the different local government units and ensures the compliance of the different subdivision and condominium developers, while the HUDCC was in charge of project monitoring and coordination between the different and numerous housing NGAs.

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This is considered as an effort to rationalize the human settlements sector and address the fragmentation between land use planning and housing in the previous institutional arrangement. ’’The DHSUD will better address the housing problem, specifically the housing backlog to accommodate more informal settlers and the poor implementation of existing housing laws.’’ (Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito, author of the law creating DHSUD. In Philstar 2019.)

Among the players described in this institutional context, the DHSUD is the highest level of public authority; it coordinates and regulates the actions of all the other stakeholders involved in ISFs matter (in this case). Obviously, it is a major actor to incorporate and consider for any policy, plan or strategy that includes ISFs aspects.

• Department of Interior and Local Governments (DILG) The main power and function of DILG is to assist the president in the exercise of general supervision over local governments, while promoting peace and order, ensuring public safety and further strengthening the administrative, technical and fiscal capabilities of local government offices and personnel (DILG Website). Through its Regional Offices and PMO, DILG provides technical and financial assistance to the LGUs while monitoring their actions: ‘’To ensure that the LGUs play an active role and to hold them accountable to their actions / inaction, these guidelines are hereby issued...’’(Memorandum Circular 2017-8930by DILG). It also insures endorsement and implementation of the Local Plans. (Local Shelter plan, CLUPs31…)

Therefore, DILG exclusively regulates and monitors the actions of LGUs regarding various issues, including ISFs. Similarly to DHSUD, it is a high level public authority, the difference however is that it focuses entirely on LGUs, while DHSUD powers extend to all stakeholders involved in ISFs (NGAs, LGUs, Private Sector, and NGOs).

Mandamus agencies In 1999, concerned residents of Manila Bay sued government agencies to demand the clean-up of Manila Bay arguing that the agencies had failed to keep the water quality in Manila Bay within the standards required by law. The Supreme Court ordered thirteen national agencies to perform specific tasks in order to achieve the clean-up of Manila Bay to make it fit for swimming, skin-diving, and other forms of contact recreation (MBSDMP, Upgrading Informal Settlement 2018).Since the lack of basic services in informal settlements along the waterways contribute to the degradation of water quality in Manila Bay, the Supreme Court required the following actions: Submission of an Inventory of ISFs living along the rivers, connecting waterways and esteros that discharge wastewater into the Manila Bay. Submission of a plan for the removal of said informal settlers and the demolition of the aforesaid structures, constructions and encroachments.

In Metro Manila, the agency in charge for the abovementioned action is the MMDA (Metro Manila Development Authority). In the other provinces (Rizal, Laguna, Cavite, Bulacan, Pampanga, and Bataan) it is the DPWH and the LGUs. This new law therefore introduces and involves new stakeholders into the ISFs governance system, while giving more legal requirements to the LGUs in some geographic areas. Usually MMDA’s

30Memorandum Circular 2017 -89, Policies and guidelines on the monitoring, treatment and resettlement of Informal Settler Families and the maintenance of cleared areas, DILG. 31Comprehensive Land Use plans

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functions32 and DPWH mandates33 do not directly concern ISFs. This situation, together with the non-consistent and varying institutional arrangement depending on the administrative region is confusing; especially in the case of MBSDMP that covers both these administrative entities. Another aspect that links this to the MBSDMP is worth highlighting: the Mandamus case showcases how an environmental concern such as the clean-up and rehabilitation of Manila Bay translates into institutional arrangements that affect and concern ISFs. The Master Plan, object of this paper, which shows similar goals and concerns, will have to strategically decide what to make of this and how to position itself in this regard.

Multi-level bodies These structures are part of the governance landscape of Manila Bay regarding ISFs. It merges together stakeholders from various functional sectors and institutional circles and levels. They form an additional layer (See figure 14) that adds and create more relations between the stakeholders.

LHB-Local Housing Boards The local housing board is headed by the city Mayor or municipal Mayor, and is composed of municipal officers, a representative from the PCUP and representatives from local people Organizations and NGOs. (Memorandum Circular 2008-143 by DILG). Its main Function is to locally monitor activities pertaining to ISFs ranging from social preparation, beneficiary selection, formulation of the Local Shelter Plans and the Relocation and Resettlement Action Plan. For example, the LHB formulates project-specific guidelines for beneficiary selection and other appropriate guidelines, it will approve or not the Local Shelter Plan submitted by the LGUs, and prior to any eviction or demolition the LHB has to deliver a Demolition Compliance Certificate34 to the implementing body (which can be a department, NGA or LGU).

The LHB seems to bring together different stakeholders with different functions, in order to ‘jointly’ monitor the actions of LGUs. A part from the PCUP, which is a National Government Agency under Department of Social Welfare and Development, the rest of the stakeholders that compose LHB are ‘Local Stakeholders’.

National Technical Working Group on ISFs NTWG -ISF 35an inter-government agency under the lead of DILG (Department of interior and local government). Several national government agencies are members of the National Technical Working Group (NTWG)-ISF, and are organized as follow: Social Preparation Committee: Stakeholders involved: Philippine Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) and National Anti-Poverty Commission36 (NAPC) Mission: provide advice and assistance on activities relating to social preparation activities and to provide the necessary support in terms of organizing ISF beneficiaries; 32 The scope of MMDA Services includes Metro-wide services in terms of Development planning, Transport and traffic management, Solid waste disposal and management, Flood control and sewerage management, zoning and land use planning, health and sanitation, and public safety. (Republic Act 7924 of 1994) 33 DPWH is currently responsible for the planning, design, construction and maintenance of infrastructure, especially the national highways, flood control and water resources development system, and other public works in accordance with national development objectives. (http://www.dpwh.gov.ph) 34Ensures that adequate consultations with the families were undertaken, adequate relocation site and resettlement facilities are available and compliance with pre-relocation RA 7279 35In December 2010, the president created NTWG -ISF to ensure the immediate implementation of A 5-year Housing Program (2011-2016). Under this program, the Government allocated ₱50 billion to relocate Informal Settler Families (ISFs) living along danger areas in Metro Manila, particularly those along waterways such as creeks, rivers and esteros.

36 NAPCacts as a coordinating body between government agencies and the basic sector (which includes Urban Poor)

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Site Selection and Evaluation Committee Stakeholders involved: Philippine Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) and Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Mission: provide advice and assistance in the evaluation of resettlement area for suitability for housing development, taking into consideration environmental and geo-hazard risks; Finance and Affordability Committee Stakeholders involved: Department of Finance (DOF), NHA, Social Housing Finance Corporation (SHFC) and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) Mission: provide advice on appropriate financing and affordability scheme based on the assessment and analysis of capacity to pay of ISF beneficiaries.

Implementing agencies: -Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for livelihood programs and social facilities -NHA for housing -SHFC for finance mechanisms - Local Government Unit (LGUs) for various actions (eviction, land acquisition, housing, basic services…) related to their mandates described above.

Similarly to the Local Housing Board, the NTWG -ISF merges into one structure several stakeholders.

The difference between the two bodies, lays in the fact that most of the stakeholders in the NTWG belong to the National Government, except from the LGUs. Another difference is that it assigns specific sectoral functions to the stakeholders according to their mandates.

International Stakeholders International support is largely present and active for both the NGAs (National Government agencies) and the LGUs (Local Government Units). International Financing Institutions (IFIs) mainly the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) and international NGOs such as UN-Habitat through its global programs, provide funding for project-based initiatives that include technical assistance and capacity building programs.

These international players have had a major role in the Philippines by influencing the National approach and Government Policies when dealing with ISFs. The ‘Tondo Foreshore Development Project’ for Barangay 105 in Manila City, covered by our site visit (see section 1.B.b), was funded by the World Bank and helped increase the institutional capacity of the newly established National Housing Authority NHA37 that is accountable and responsible for low-income and affordable housing construction in the country. It helped shift the agency’s intervention from off-City resettlements to On-Site Upgrading and introduced community participation as an important component of the project.

In general, projects with international stakeholders helped align the national and local interventions along with international objectives and approaches leading to greater community participation, greater involvement of LGUs and NGOs and more On-Site Upgrading and Near-City Resettlement initiatives. Some of these projects are considered as best practices38that are often referred to, by NGAs and local NGOs representatives, during the workshops and the interviews that I had with them.

37 Established in 1975 38DPUCSP Development of the Urban Poor Communities Project (ADB) &UPSURGE Project Urban Partnerships for Sustainable Upliftment, Renewal, Governance, and Empowerment (World Bank)

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However, the project-based nature of these initiatives and the fragmented responsibilities among the institutions do not help the generalization of these results. Even though many national policies39 are aligned with the international approaches, local and national practices do not always follow, mainly affected by the local conditions (lack of resources such as land and funds, lack of technical capacity, lack of coordination among the implementing institutions…).

International expertise contributed to drafting the MBSDMP project and was behind its existence.

The team structure is also a mix between international firms (Deltares & Tractebel) and local experts.

The involvement of the international level is therefore an important parameter that changes the dynamics of the governance system and institutional landscape where MBSDMP operates.

b.PLURALITY, FRAGMENTATION AND DIVERSITY, AN INSTITUTIONAL REALITY FOR MANILA BAY ISFS ISSUE Based on the previous chapter where I mapped and described the stakeholders involved for ISFs issues in Manila Bay, I have identified the following characteristics regarding the Institutional Arrangements and Urban Governance Structure:

• SECTORIZATION AND FRAGMENTATION: The ability of informal settlers to ‘upgrade’ to formality and access improved and decent settlements entail the consideration of social, economic, political, and environmental dimensions. This means addressing ISFs issues goes beyond the provision of affordable housing to include access to basic services, tenure security, livelihood and job opportunities, vulnerability and risks to climate change and disasters, participation in decision-making processes… In this study, I chose to refer to those different aspects and dimensions as sectors of intervention that can both represent ‘sites’ where actors operate independently or form different phases of one process.

The following figure (Figure 16) summarizes the involvement and type of actions undertaken by various actors according to those different sectors and phases. This representation highlights how the actions of the various players are split and organized based on their mandates and sectoral functions described in the above section.

39 NISUS National Informal Settlements Upgrading Strategy, NRPF National Resettlement Policy Framework.

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Figure 16. Stakeholders by sector of intervention . @ Source: Personal Resource

For each action, the figure shows stakeholders that are responsible for the implementation of the action and other involved stakeholders in charge of providing assistance or monitoring. I chose to refer to each group as a ‘community of practice’. The functional distribution around sectoral fields, showcased in Figure 16, comes also with a lack of coordination between each ‘community of practice’.

This leads to diffused and incomplete initiatives. As mentioned above, when NHA develops socialized housing it stops at building the dwellings and requires LGUs to provide utilities and basic services, in some cases however, the LGUs consider it as an NHA project that have nothing to do with them.

Similarly, livelihood and access to transportation is seen to be the responsibility of the LGUs, the department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the department of Transportation (DOTr) respectively, so relocation and resettlement sites end up deprived of those services.

By analyzing figure 16 we can extract two other different ideas pointing to the same direction: in some cases, various stakeholders are identified as implementing actors for the same action, while LGUs are key implementing actors that are identified in every action related to ISFs. This might suggest a cohesive, consistent and integrated institutional system, with in some cases, overlaps and shared responsibilities between the stakeholders. I would like to underline however, that this diagram was based on legal resources; it draws from stakeholders’ functions and missions identified in laws, Republic Acts, Executive Orders… (see section ‘1.C.a Stakeholder mapping’). In practice, the matter is different, and at the core of this, is the issue of decentralization and the gap between transfer of responsibilities and transfer of resources.

In fact, even if LGUs are legally held responsible for all those actions, they often lack the resources, the capabilities to undertake them; in some cases, they are not even informed of the policies and regulations that regulate and guide their interventions. We therefore lose the only consistent element in this system, and instead of overlapping actions by other stakeholders, their interventions tend to replace and compensate the lack perceived. This situation is what I call institutional fragmentation, where within the functional sectors we find, in practice, different actors each time.

The sectoral organization and institutional fragmentation also creates tensions and negative dynamics between the actors. For example, local governments are often blamed for the delays in resettlement and socialized housing projects because they failed to submit the required reports on the inventory of land.

When discussing the institutional aspect with the experts I worked with, and during my interview with the Institutional expert of the team, they see the need to address this fragmentation by assigning one accountable body as the authoritative power and coordination force between all the other players. The new DHSUD is commonly identified as the solution and the outcome of a rationalization effort to solve the problem. The previous HUDCC which is now a part of the DHSUD was previously in charge of this coordination, which made me question how the new department will be any different. However, looking into the institutional solutions would be another subject that I will not examine in this paper.

• OVERLAPPING ACTIONS AND LAYERED RELATIONAL WEBS The outcome of such sectoral organization involving different levels of governance (National and Local in this case) is the tendency to regroup around new institutional sites that bridge and connect the stakeholders together. In this case, not one but two inter-agency organizations were created respectively for each level of governance, namely the National Technical Working group (NTWG) and the Local Housing Board (LHB) both of which I have previously descried. The first one (NTWG) seems to be public-sector oriented with an emphasis on the National Government Agencies. The second (LHB) is presented as the venue for consultation and coordination with the communities and NGOs; it also seems to be a monitoring body for locally implemented actions.

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The independent effectiveness of these two bodies is certainly debatable but what strikes me the most is the persistent fragmentation that the existent of two separate bodies recalls, as if the ‘Local’ and ‘National’ cannot come together.

The other aspect that I conclude is related to the fact that the involvement of these two structures is rather project-based or territory-based than generally applicable in all situations. Furthermore, under these two organizations the actors have specific actions and limited interactions that do not cover all the wide range of their usual responsibilities when addressing ISFs. All of this means that instead of grouping and bringing together all the stakeholders around one institutional arena, it creates an additional layer that overlaps with the existent webs and networks.

Figure 14 summarizes all what I mentioned during the stakeholder mapping in terms of stakeholder interactions and showcases how they are tied into different networks while operating in different institutional sites and institutional levels.

This structure becomes more complex once we consider the territorial aspect of the interventions.

IfIn-City relocations usually involves one LGU that requires assistance and specific actions from other national government institutions, Off-City relocation on the other hand, implies that one or several ‘Receiving LGUs’ come into play. However, LGUs actions and responsibilities are limited to its territory, which means that ‘Receiving LGUs’ do not consider themselves accountable for the relocated ISFs, while ‘Sending LGUs’ would not allocate their resources to another LGU. This raises the question of who is in charge and whose resources are to be deployed to answer the needs of the relocated ISFs. This kind of relocations, although locally situated, entail the involvement of national agencies that intervene as an implementing party (NHA to build the houses and provide the land)or as a supervising party that regulates the relationship between the two LGUs (DILG in this case)40, adding therefore another relational layer to the structure.

This brings me to stress the public-sector dominated aspect of such structure. Off-City relocation is not the only occasion were National Authorities are the implementing body at a local level in addition to all their other interventions and functions (monitoring, supervision, assistance…) as shown in figure 16. In fact, when the municipality does not have the resources or in most cases when ISFs are located on National Government Land, NHA directly takes in charge the housing project.

• CONFLICT OF INTEREST AND CONFRONTATIONAL RELATIONS Each group of stakeholders is mobilized around specific issues and acts according to its interests to get policy attention or push for a specific agenda. While this system of ‘interests’ might connect some of the players if it serves their respective goals, most of the time, conflicting and varying interests create tensions and confrontational relations. In the case of Manila Bay, we can clearly identify these dynamics between the National Government, the Local Government, the Private Sector, and the Civil Society.

The National Government is focused on Manila Bay rehabilitation and clean-up in accordance with the Writ Mandamus of the Supreme Court of 2013. This determination is even stronger today, since DENR Secretary Roy A. Cimatu, announced earlier this year that the Manila Bay will be fit for swimming by December 2019. ISFs are considered as major contributors to the pollution of Manila Bay and dislocating them is usually the proposed solution.

Mobilized by moral and social concerns, NGOs and POs have been fighting this relocation since a long time. In fact, they believe that LGUs and National Government agencies use this program as an excuse to get rid of Informal Settlers and send them to far away relocation sites without any 40 At the initiative of some LGUs a Memorandum of Understanding MOA between the sending and receiving cities has been drafted. Up to now it is still common practice nor approved by all LGUs, DILG is looking into scaling it up. This has been brought to our attention during a MBSDMP workshop to include it as one of our measures.

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consideration of their livelihoods that, for many, depend on activities related to the Bay. In some municipalities of Metro Manila especially, the motivation of the government is questioned because of the Reclamation Projects that are in prospect and that would benefit from the land cleared by relocating ISFs. “We want to be clear that the poor people are not against the Manila Bay Rehabilitation, they are participating in all the cleanup efforts. What they are against is that, while they have been participating in the rehabilitation of the bay, the government has been planning to reclaim lands.

This, for them, defeats the purpose of bringing the bay back to its former glory.” (Alicia Murphy, Executive Director Urban Poor Associates, in BusinessMirror September 6, 2019) Here, what seems as an opposition of environmental goals of the government and social concerns of NGOs is tainted with a long history of confrontation and distrust. In fact, there are various factors and events that reinforced and nourished the popular perception that government is self-serving and untrustworthy.

On one hand, there have been many occasions where the people have felt betrayed by the National Government and NHA specifically. As an example, during the 70’s, the ‘Tondo Foreshore Project’ conducted by NHA restored people’s faith in the government and people believed in the newly created NHA’s shifting practice. However, one of NHA’s first major programs after the ‘Tondo Foreshore’ was to attempt to obtain relief from chronic flooding in Manila by clearing obstructions from rivers and drainage canals in the city. This led to the removal of all squatter families living on waterways while the severe time constraints imposed on the program didn’t allow the preparation of permanent relocation settlements in suitable locations. This severely soured relations between the NHA and the community groups and led to express doubts about NHA’s sincerity (World Bank, 1977).

Similarly, when, in 2010,the president created the NTWG -ISF and allocated 50 billion Pesos for a 5-year Housing Program it was considered as a success by the POs and Community Groups who were part of the negotiations for the program. For the first two years NHA handled the budget, and contrary to the POs expectations, it used it to build out of Manila relocation sites to displace Informal Settler Families (ISFs) living along danger areas such as waterways such as creeks, rivers and esteros.

(Interview with sociologist on Sept. 3, 2019)All these occasions led to a general discontent and anger toward NHA that grew over the years.

On the other hand, ISFs are a rich source of votes and some LGUs driven by political objectives, take advantage of the situation to maximize electoral advantages rather than truly addressing the concerns of the slums’ inhabitants. Additionally, according to the functional sectorization, in relocation sites the receiving municipality is responsible for the provision of the needed basic services. The problem, however, is that relocated ISFs remain registered voters of the place they left and are not attractive constituents for the receiving Municipality. LGUs are also perceived to serve their financial and political interests when welcoming and encouraging big private developers to purchase land and invest in developments that will make the taxes go up and the LGU become a higher-level municipality while causing people to be displaced. In this last case, as in the Reclamation Projects example, Civil Society is opposing both the LGUs and Private Sector actions.

People’s representation in the Philippine as we have seen is strong and they have been continuously opposing the National and Local Government and Private Sector projects and demanding for their concerns to be addressed rather than just heard. This confrontation has been going on for so long that each party is refusing to listen to the other anymore. The Civil Society has completely lost trust in the government and is stuck in a fighting framework. The Public Sector, from its end, detached itself from the Civil Society on the assumption that they will say ‘No’ to any proposal, or even when participation is welcomed, it is not taken into consideration for the implementation.

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This section included various stakeholders that through their mandates, functions and interests, are relevant to the ISFs case. It also highlighted their relations, attitudes and aspirations. In addition to such Plurality Fragmentation (sectorization), plurality (overlaps) and diversity (varying interests) is what is concluded as characteristics of the institutional context for ISFs in Manila Bay. The MBSDMP will have therefore, to operate in this institutional landscape, among these stakeholders, and penetrate these complex webs of relations.

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Thesis Statement By analyzing and confronting the urban, social and institutional context of the Manila Bay Sustainable Development Master Plan (see section 1.B and 1.C) we can manage to build a clear image of the challenges it is facing in terms of Informal Settlements concerns.

Slums and Informal Settlements are a major problem affecting millions of people, especially in Metro Manila and its surrounding Regions, covered by the Master Plan. There are many factors that contribute to these increased numbers of ISFs, whether it is the housing backlog, the lack of inclusive growth strategies or the need for a national policy to spread economic growth to other geographical centers and social groups… One of the major contributors, however, is the institutional set-up, which is behind the failure to correctly and holistically address the issue.

As demonstrated above (Chapter 1.B.b), the multi-layered governance structure coupled with fragmentation, sectoral organization, and functional and territorial overlaps, lead to diffused, independent and uncoordinated interventions. Regardless of the efforts made to change the situation and bring more coordination and collaboration between the stakeholders, the current institutional system still provides incomplete and inappropriate solutions that are no longer accepted or tolerated by the People. In addition to the conflicting interest and concerns of the various stakeholders (political, environmental, social, and business interests), the long history of failed projects, poor communication, and the lack of participation processes and community involvement led to a climate of distrust and affected the ability of each ‘political community’ to open up to the other. The result is confrontational interactions where each party enters a competition to defend its position and values with an ‘I-win-you-lose’ mindset.

Yet, In this challenging environment - between the enormous scale of the ISFs problem in the MBSDMP’s coverage area, the complex governance structure, and the various stakeholders with their interests and relational behaviors - the Manila Bay Sustainable Development Master Plan aims to lead the way to inclusive growth and identifies addressing concerns of ISFs as one of its priorities (See section 1.C).Because of the environmental concerns that led to the very existence of the Master Plan41 and the strong environmental competences of the lead firms and experts, the emphasis on ecosystem protection, disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and water quality improvement is very clear.

By focusing on the environmental aspect, found in the Master Plan’s statements and action list, it appeals to the national priorities and matches the urgent reality of the coverage area threatened and affected by hazards and environmental concerns. It also means however, that it will have to deal with the ’historical’ confrontations between the Government and the long-term residents living in danger areas (waterways such as creeks, rivers and esteros) around Relocation or Upgrading strategies and maybe face a strong opposition from the Civil Society that have been fighting against the same discourses for a long time.

Therefore, based on what have been discussed above, the leading questions that the rest of this paper will tackle are: how does the strategic Master Plan position itself among this wider governance structure? What can the Master Plan bring to the table and how effective and transformative can it be? How can we ensure that the Master Plan is not just another layer, an addition to the collection of studies and plans, without bringing any actual change to the situation? And what elements and initiatives can turn this Master Plan into an opportunity to introduce a shift in the embedded discourses and practices?

41the report completed by the Dutch Risk Reduction (DRR) Team, 2016

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Part 2. Collaborative Planning theories for fragmented communities Introduction After identifying the fragmented multi-sided governance system as a major difficulty that the MBSDMP is facing and as the main issue that this paper addresses, this part uses an intellectual and theoretical lens to answer the study’s questions and help make judgments about the efforts undertaken in the case studies.

By reviewing the academic literature on strategic planning processes in networked societies and multi-stakeholders’ systems, the work of various researchers and theorists (Forester 1993; Healey 1997, 2007; Innes 1995; Fainstein 2000; PURBANI 2017; Allmendinger & Tewdwr-Jones, 2002), introduced the notion of collaborative planning as an answer to the problem and a strategy to deal with conflict, plurality and fragmentation. This part that aims to present an understanding of collaborative planning processes and practices is organized as follow: After introducing ‘Collaborative Planning’ as a shift marking the history of planning theory, the first chapter features the factors that led to its emergence, explains its origins and the concepts that form its theoretical framework, and finally, gives its main characteristics.

The second chapter establishes a link between collaborative theories and the contextual factors or ‘ground’ conditions. By reminding us of the practical stakes and challenges of planning approaches in a specific context, it gradually brings us back to the notions and theories of collaborative planning introduced at the first chapter. Here, they are presented at the end of the reasoning, as a logical and suitable answer. In general, the aim here is to draw on its common characteristics to investigate it as an appropriate solution for a fragmented institutional context and a multi-stakeholder system.

If the second chapter attempts to investigate the ‘Why’, the third chapter demonstrates how collaborative planning can have transformative consequences. By providing an answer to this questioning, this part serves the issue of this paper on the added value of planning and the changes it can bring. Here, I investigate what kind of transformations occurs through the mobilization of collaborative planning mechanisms and processes.

From conceptual foundations, I move to a practical fourth chapter who is here to pragmatically guide me through the last part of this study where I observe and analyze the mechanisms employed for the MBSDMP. This chapter contains a list of recommendations and measures that need to be respected and applied for an approach to be effective. The elements provided in this list will shape the way I later-on investigate and analyze the approach of the strategic Master Plan.

2.A – Emergence of ‘Collaborative Planning’ Theoretical discussions and debates in the planning discipline are constantly reframed, affected by ‘’events on the ground’’ or as a reactions to previous dominant thoughts (Fainstein, 2000: 454).

As stated differently by Allmendinger (2002: 1), shifts in planning theory are generally deeply influenced by the changing ‘sensibilities’ of social theory, and occur as a result of ‘constructive opposition’ or simply as ‘Post’ developments, referring to a significant ‘difference’ between the two modes of thinking. Such shifts lead to the emergence of new ways of thinking and new paradigms that form new ‘schools’ or ‘movements’ in the ‘’contemporary landscape of planning theory’’ (2002: 13).

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‘Collaborative Planning’ is a good example of the above-mentioned new theoretical movements that fused, into planning theories and practices, philosophical and social concepts such as the work of Habermas42, as explained below. In the late twentieth century, many scholars and researchers introduced ‘Collaborative Planning’ as the new leading model in planning theory, among which Judith Innes (1995 : 183)43 declared the collaborative model as “planning theory’s emerging paradigm” (Fainstein, 2000 : 456 and Goodspeed, 2017 : 1), and Healey (1996, p. 239)44 described it as ‘’new conception of reasoning’’ based on a ‘‘communicative perspective of rationality’’ (Fainstein, 2000: 455). This new notion did not coincidently emerge out of nowhere; it is rather the product of a series of circumstances related to a certain phase in the history of planning theory. In fact, the principle reason that pushed theorists to import concepts that are external to the planning discipline, and directed their attention to Habermas, is the ‘crisis’ in the planning theory reflected by the decline of the conventional rational planning model. (Allmendinger & Tewdwr-Jones, 2002). This ‘crisis’ stimulated and allowed an ‘exploration’ and ‘search’ phase, where philosophical alternatives were sought to overcome the limitations of the rational model of decision-making and compensate for the strict “‘clean, calculating and homogenizing’ instrumental rationality (Dryzek, 1993: 213)” ((Allmendinger and Tewdwr-Jones, 2002 :26) ‘Argumentative Planning’ (Forester, 1993), ‘Collaborative Planning’ (Healey, 1997, 1998), ‘Communicative Model’(Fainstein ,2000), “Dialogical Planning” (Harper & Stein, 2006; Stein & Harper, 2003), are all terms used to refer to a new generation and typology of planning (see Allmendinger & Tewdwr-Jones, 2002 : 16 and Goodsspeed, 2017 : 2), that has developed during the 1990s to form what is known as Collaborative Planning Theory (CPT) (Goodsspeed, 2017). While there is no ‘single’ definition accorded to CPT and while different theorists have analyzed it from different standpoints (See Goodsspeed, 2017 : 2), the main common characteristic, is that it draws on Jürgen Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action (1984, 1987), which forms an abstract and complex framework for the new planning theory. The sociologist–philosopher Habermas exposes the ‘powers’ that dominate relations and are “exerted through abstract systems but also through distorting mediums such as professionals including planners.” (Allmendinger & Tewdwr-Jones, 2002 : 17) These ideas haves been directly incorporated into the planning theory. Fainstein (2000) confronts the rational model and the physical-outcome-oriented vision dominant in the planning activity since the 1960s to the communicative model that emerged in the 1990s. The first model works as a scientific, logical, instrumental methodology, “primarily been used for forecasting impacts and for program evaluation” (. Fainstein, 2000 : 454) with strong emphasis on spatial and physical outcomes, and little regard to the political aspect. The latter model, object of this chapter, adopts a political economic perspective with ideals of openness, diversity, and inclusiveness, opposing therefore, a top-down ‘rational’ planning (Fainstein, 2000). In other words, collaborative planning is more sensible to its social geographical environment, as it injects into public policy the notion of ‘space’ not merely as a physical context but as a “social construct” (Allmendinger and Tewdwr-Jones, 2002 :34) involving various groups or ‘communities’.

Therefore, collaborative planning incorporates a series of topics such as relations of power, communities of practice, cultures and systems of governance, institutional design, technocratic mediation and conflict resolution, spatial planning (Healey, 1997 and Allmendinger and TewdwrJones, 2002). “…collaborative planning may be identified as intimately concerned with issues of context (the nature of particular places and systems of governance) and structure (institutional organisation).

In addition, the model of collaborative planning attends to issues of the manifestation of power relations and, most importantly, adopts an explicitly normative agenda of developing better(read ‘more democratic’) planning practices (Healey, 1997c: 72).” (Allmendinger and Tewdwr-Jones, 2002 :34) 42 Theory of Communicative Action (1984, 1987) 43 Innes, Judith E. 1998. Information in communicative planning. Journal of the American Planning Association, Winter, 52-63.

44 Planning through debate: the communicative turn in planning theory. Pp. 234-57 49

2.B - The need for Collaborative Planning, or why practice it ?

As emphasized before, strategy -making and planning processes take place in specific ‘governance landscapes’. To be able to reach its defined objectives and achieve material effects, a strategy has to enroll people from different positions, develop momentum and ensure future ownership (Healey 1993, 2007). This cannot go without reaching the webs of relations and penetrating the institutional sites where it is to be operated. ‘’Strategy formation is not just about the articulation of strategic areas but about persuading and inspiring many different actors, in different positions in a governance landscape, that particular ideas carry power, to generate and to regulate ideas for projects.’’ (Healey,2007 : 192) ‘’For a strategic vision to endure and flow to influence critical arenas where action is shaped, it needs to accumulate sufficient power to enroll others. ‘’(Healey, 2007 : 195) This is specifically true in a complex plurally-networked society where accomplishments face the challenge of managing conflicts and creating flexible linkages among many players. Urban planning thus, must go beyond its traditional technical nature and scientific rationalism to become a political and intellectual activity ‘’explicitly concerned with the governance of place.’’ (Healey,2007 : 278) ‘’In such a perspective, the planning project has the potential to become much more than just an attempt to insert a spatial perspective into public policy, or to encourage better coordination or more effective ways of tracing the impacts of a proposed development project. (…) It becomes a way of thinking about the dynamically evolving relations between the multiple proximities and connectivities of places …’’ (Healey, 2007 : 278) In this statement and throughout her book, Healey introduces a relational dimension to urban planning processes and emphasizes the importance of recognizing multiplicity, diversity and heterogeneity to have an effective strategy. The response to institutional fragmentation is then the creation of interaction and collaboration opportunities between the multiple stakeholders. This instantly leads us to collaborative planning processes: ‘’Collaborative planning is a new paradigm of planning for a complex contemporary society which usually mediates conflicts between parties through consensus-building processes.’’ (Purbani, 2017 : 11) ‘’Collaborative planning can be described as a combination of “soft” and “hard infrastructure”, which is called “institutional design”: “soft infrastructure” includes informal collaborative strategy-making processes, such as social learning, through which stakeholders communicate with each other and build social, intellectual and political capitals; and “hard infrastructure” refers to the design of political, administrative and legal processes, through which people change the power relations in networks.’’ (Purbani, 2017 : 2)

2.c - The potential of Collaborative Planning Collaborative planning is a process of mediation, dialogue and participation, and through this favored communication and interactions, new relational networks are established based on knowledge sharing, understanding and mutual gain. In a context of diffused and overlapping initiatives and arenas, it offers the opportunity of encounter leading the way to a shared joint direction.

In effect, by encouraging networking and mutual learning, collaborative planning approaches help build trust among the stakeholders, raise awareness of linkages and tensions, and overcome interest group conflicts as they shift from competitive interest bargaining to negotiating consensus building.

But why is this important and how can information-sharing and new relations lead to action?

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Through communication, learnings become shared ‘’social, intellectual and political capitals’’ or what Healey calls ’new cultural formations’ (Healey, 1997). In other words, new ways of thinking and new ways of structuring emerge that have the capacity to unsettle the embedded and taken-for granted systems and disturb past routines of practices. ‘’In this way, planning work is both embedded in its context of social relations through its day to day practices and has a capacity to challenge and change these relations through the approach of these practices.’’(Rachelle A., R., Stav, 1999 : 133 ) The new layer of relations and meanings result in an ‘’institutional coherence’’ and an ‘’institutional capacity’’ that allow stakeholders to make joint decisions and collectively address urban issues.

The transformative power of collaborative consensus-buildings resides then in the fact that it sets the base for collaboration and action coordination based on a shared system of meanings, linking therefore knowledge to action45.

2.d – Ingredients for practicing Collaborative Planning In collaborative approaches, planners take on a new task. Shifting away from applied scientists, they become advocates and mediators engaged in the shared learning process with the other participants, while using their expertise to enforce a convincing power and advise others. ‘’…planner roles in the political process include an engineer, bureaucrat, lawyer and politician.’’

(Purbani, 2017 : 8) interpret and restructure ‘’Within communicative theory the planner’s primary function is to listen to people’s stories and assist in forging a consensus among differing viewpoints. Rather than providing technocratic leadership, the planner is an experiential learner, at most providing information to participants but primarily being sensitive to points of convergence.’’ (Fainstein, 2000 : 455) In order for collaborative processes to be effective, a set of parameters and criteria for the systematic institutional design of collaborative planning (Healey 1997, 2007) need to be respected. The following represents a synthesis and restructuration of academic reflections and theories46 on the matter.

• PARAMETER 1- INSTITUTIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND AWARENESS This entails recognizing the range and variety of stakeholders, while identifying their goals, interests, resources, efforts and level of influence. Awareness of the multiple relational webs and the linkages / conflicts between them, leads to avoiding a reductionist approach and dominant discourses while fostering inclusion of diverse groups and ‘political communities’.

• PARAMETER 2-NOURISHING A ‘’PUBLIC REALM ‘’ (HEALEY 2007) This is done by encouraging encounter and connection between the diverse stakeholders from formal and informal arenas and allowing new insights and multiple forms of knowledge to arise.

Specifically, it is about creating and providing the right conditions that enable debates, exchange and participation.

45Communicative Planning Theory 46Healey 1997, 2007 ; Purbani 2017

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• PARAMETER 3 -NETWORKING AND BUILDING RELATIONS The role of collaborative planners does not stop at ‘knowing and understanding’ the governance landscape but implies also their capacity to interact and reach out to the multiple players. As emphasized by Healey (2007), this part requires strategic judgments as to who gets involved, which conflicts may be resolved and which institutional sites are likely to provide suitable arenas for the strategy to penetrate, accumulate power and lead to transformations both as material improvements and as contributions to the values and sensibilities of the communities.

In practical ways, this means attaching the strategy to an authoritative power, with enough resources and powers to legitimately, and formally, carry it forward. But it also means appreciating and recognizing the potential that lies outside the formal arenas, where the strategy can have more meaning and a bigger chance to be adopted.

• PARAMETER 4 -TAKING ADVANTAGE OF MOMENTS OF OPPORTUNITY As important as developing more persuasive and seductive power to reach wider institutional arenas and infuse the strategic Master Plan with mobilizing power, grasping local and external moments of opportunity can have a big effect on the future of the plan. For example, this can be about positioning the ideas in a way that relate to the concerns and realities of evolving stakeholders in a specific context.

Conclusion This part introduced the concept of collaborative planning and what it is about. It explained its transformative potential in a fragmented society and gave a general idea about the elements of success for collaborative process to be efficient. Here, the practical parameters are simply listed down with a brief explanation, agreed on for this paper. These are ideas that will be held on to in order to be further detailed and illustratedwith actual examples from the case studies.

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Part 3. MBSDMP Planning Approach Introduction The ideas discussed and explained in the previous chapter present the principles and approaches of collaborative planning as a relevant process to adopt for a fragmented governance system, similar to the one in Manila Bay descried previously.

In this chapter, guided by thepractical guidelines (four criteria) and the ideas about the transformative potential of a collaborative process extracted from academic literature, I investigate the approaches undertaken for Manila Bay Sustainable Development Plan. The idea here is toidentify these collaborative processes and strategies and analyze how they come to place, their contribution and relevance for Manila Bay. The consequences of any initiative undertaken by the Master Plan’s experts will take time to play out and might not be perceived or experience until much later. So, any assessment of the transformative power of these efforts can only be limited to the potential they provide or their short-term impact.

This section is structured into three parts, the first one (MBSDMP General Approach and strategies) analyzes the general set up and strategy of the MBSDMP, the second and third one (Case Study 1– Coastal LGUs of Region III, and Case Study 2– Coastal LGUs of NCR) deep dive respectively into two cases that take place in two different administrative regions of Manila Bay. The choice of the case studies is based on my experience during the internship and serves the purpose of comparing the processes between two different institutional landscapes in two administrative entities.

Each part first presents, describes and analyzed the strategies and processes for each scale (General approach for Manila Bay and defined coastal LGUs) or territory (Region III and NCR). But, at the end of each part, before moving on to the next one, I go back to the collaborative planning theories and ideas agreed upon in the previous section ‘Collaborative Planning theories for fragmented communities’ to comment the MBSDMP strategy. This intellectual process is presented in the ‘analytical conclusion’, where the practical parameters of collaborative planning,extracted from the academic literature, are the starting point and the ideas analyzed in the previous part of this chapter are synthesized and structured differently. The purpose here is to illustrate which and how those parameters were applied anddemonstrate how ‘Collaborative’ is the approach of MBSDMP.

3.A - MBSDMP General Approach and strategies The first part of this section aims to describe and understand the MBSDMP approach as a strategy elaborated and designed since the beginning of the project. For such purpose, I use the Master Plan’s reports as a reference and resource. Quotes extracted from thosereports show the exact wording and statement used by the Master Plan in order to better relay its intents and perspectives.

I then draw from my own experience to feed the analysis with actual practices to give an idea about the operational aspect of the approach and showcase how these strategies were applied generally at the scale of Manila Bay Region.

A. THE PRIORITIES The MBDMP’s documents clearly state the importance of developing a suitable institutional climate that enables participation and ensures ownership and implementation of the MasterPlan.

‘For effective implementation of the MBSDMP a suitable governance system shall be developed that will be inclusive, participatory and transparent.’ (MBDMP Inception Report,2018 : 25)

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Stakeholder engagement and the governance dimension of the MBDMP was, since the first steps of the project, pushed for as one of the core aspects and priorities of the Master Plan. Behind this, is the Dutch lead firm and experts who also drafted the Terms of Reference for the project. They draw from their previous experience in Jakarta47, where fishermen were not included in the process48, to engage in a more inclusive and stakeholders -oriented approach for Manila Bay. In this case, the strong involvement of international experts as team leaders and members raises the question of circulation of models and the influence of international expertise on the planning process. It is not however, the purpose of the study to further discuss and assess this matter, especially in light of the local experiences and track record of the international firm and the mixed nature of the team consisting also of a local team leader and experts.

The system proposed by the team consists of clearly defined rules and strategies that identify the role, responsibilities and rights of the stakeholders; in addition to the provision of an “ample space for all concerned government agencies, LGUs, private sector and other key stakeholders to be heard and to be part of making policy and management decisions.”(MBDMP Inception Report, 2018 : 25)

B. THE STRATEGIES: • STAKEHOLDERS’ INVOLVEMENT STRATEGIES The strategy consists of three steps:

1- Stakeholder Analysis: This entails the identification of the concerned parties along with basic information gathering about their mandates and function. The MBDMP adopts the following general definition of Stakeholders : ‘stakeholders will be all people and/or organizations that will be affected by the plan especially those that will be affected adversely including the vulnerable groups, and those that are needed to implement the plan…’49(MBDMP Inception Report, 2018 : 36) After the stakeholder profiling and after a better understanding of existing relationships among the actors was established, they were are clustered and categorized based on their interests and concerns as well as related functions and mandates. The Initial categories identified included NGAs, LGUs, private business sector, POs and NGOs, the academe and research institutions and disadvantaged/ vulnerable groups…

Figure 17. Clusters of Stakeholders as considered by MBSDMP. @ Source : MBSDMP

47 2007 Dealing with land sinking in Jakarta 48 Interview with the team leader 49 Based on IWRM Guidelines

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The MBSDMP states that the purpose behind this analysis is to guide the planning team in identifying strategies to manage the planning process and develop communication strategies ensuring that inclusivity is assured particularly for stakeholders with low or little power. To establish the list of stakeholders, the experts draw from existing literature and previous projects as well as other sources from various sectors (LGUs, NGOs, private sector…).

2-Determination of levels of participation: MBSDMP established that participation will be based on discussion and co-design. The extent of participation depends on the stakeholders’ power and interests defined by the stakeholders’ analysis.

‘At the Co-design level, the stakeholders will be actively involved in problem analysis and problem design, which fosters ownership, but where the final decision-making powers reside is with the governing agencies.’ (MBDMP Inception Report, 2018 :39) I will not be assessing the participatory approach of the MasterPlan as it demands further research and understandings that the limited time of this thesis cannot allow. In the following however, I study the collaborative side of this participation in terms of information flow and negotiation processes.

3- Stakeholders’ Engagement in the different stages of the planning process: At each stage (Situation Analysis, Strategy Building, Action Planning) FGDs are organized with stakeholders’ clusters in order to get their feedback and ensure the validity of the content of the MasterPlan while “enhancing trust between the decision-makers and the stakeholders and deepening their sense of mutual accountability”(MBDMP Inception Report, 2018 : 40)The results of the FGDs will be incorporated in the final version of the documents50.

• COMMUNICATION STRATEGY AND PROCESSES ‘The communication strategy and plan will build on the multi-actor, multi-stakeholder ethos of the MBSDMP. It will seek to build on existing resources and energies and seek to connect people and institutions…’

MBSDMP’s experts are tasked to formulate a communication strategy and products for key project stakeholders and the general public that aims to promote the strategic content and goals of the MBSDMP while serving the broader purpose of inclusion of disadvantaged groups, harmonization of efforts, and ownership as the stakeholders take in their mutual responsibilities and accountabilities.

In the long run, these outcomes are envisioned to contribute to a durable positive social change.

‘The communication strategy and plan will seek to inform, influence and inspire (…) communication should build understanding, commitment and behavioral change towards supporting a strategic and operational process as proposed by the MBSDMP project.’ (MBDMP Inception Report, 2018 :35) In order to achieve this, the experts have first identified the need to communicate in a manner that appeals to the various stakeholders’ values and sense of meaning and resonates with their motivations.

They then built the strategy around the provision of platforms that foster collective understanding and collaboration. These platforms are, in practice, organized by local public participation experts and facilitated by the local experts on the team, who most of the time used the local language, except for specific interventions by the Dutch team leader who communicated in english.

50 The final version is due on October 2019

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C. THE PROCESSES AND PRACTICES Communication and Public Participation Specialists are in charge of designing a consultative process and providing these communication platforms. These consist of:

Sector-Specific platforms: This includes Consultative Workshops, Focus Group Discussions and Training Workshops. Planning for these spaces was based on the stakeholders’ categories identified during the stakeholders’ mapping phase. Such clustering serves either to gather specific inputs or recommendations from a group with common interests and responsibilities, provide capacity-building to a category with common functions and needs, and secure views with key stakeholders. These interactions are centered around constructive dialogues “reconciling points of views in line with the national interest over the Bay area”. MBDMP- TOR, 2018 :8) Because it is held among the same group or sector, it is supposed to provide the stakeholders with a trust zone where they comfortably express their comments and recommendations to the ‘technical’ experts of the team who are considered as ‘neutral’.

These meetings were organized at various phases of the project. During the Inception report and Situation Analysis, it served to agree on the MBSDMP’s goals and core message and gather necessary data. Trainings were also conducted to capacitate NEDA’s personnel (the client) on the various planning tools, techniques and skill sets employed, including database management. A study Tour to the Netherlands was organized by the Dutch Experts Team, which I will be discussing later for one of the case studies.

During this study, I was able to attend and participate in the consultative workshops for the Operational Phase where Stakeholder Engagement is most crucial to co-design the Action-Plan of the Master Plan. The workshops attended, individually targeted NGAs, NGOs and LGUs clustered by province. Focus Group Discussions were also organized with specific NGAs such as DENR and NAPC and specific LGUs such as Bulacan Municipality, either at their request or because it was deemed necessary by the team. This set-up enabled the experts to make deep-dives and fully understand and consult each group, and revealed the similarities, differences, and varieties of conditions within the Manila Bay Area.

Multi-Sector platforms: Theses spaces bring together multiple stakeholders with the intent of presenting the outputs and getting feedback and collecting comments from various stakeholders. In this case, the role of the Public Participation Specialists is to ensure that all relevant stakeholders are represented and that all participants feel comfortable sharing their views. Regardless, certain stakeholders felt uncomfortable sharing their points of views, compared to the Specific-Sector platforms.

However, interesting discussions and exchanges arose during the ones I attended, with NGOs and Academe members expressing their points of views and LGUs sharing their local experiences.

Regardless of the political dynamics and power influences sensed during these meetings, it created a moment where all the stakeholders had a say in the Master Plan’s and turned decision-making into a negotiation process, where the experts took note of the various groups’ comments to be incorporated.

Operationally, this kind of platforms took the form of ‘Technical Committee Meetings’ that were first - as their name refer to - intended only for the technical committee meeting composed of the Dutch Government and Philippines Public Sector. The experts’ team however, pushed for opening the event to a wider range of stakeholders. ‘The Committee Meetings were new to NEDA also, at the

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beginning they wanted it to be just among themselves.’

‘This process is changing our clients view on how to do things. NEDA wants to become a real planning agency, and we are showing them that for that to happen they need to open up and do the networking that we are doing.’

D. ANALYTICAL CONCLUSION In this conclusion, as explained earlier at the beginning of this section, I do a summary of what have been described and analyzed just before, but I present it from the perspective of the practical parameters extracted from the academic literature.

The importance giving to the Institutional Design by the experts and the fact that the team incorporated stakeholders’ engagement as a clear and phased strategy to be set since the beginning of the project, in addition to the efforts undertaken to analyze and map the stakeholders, refers us to the first criteria identified during the theoretical research (Parameter 1: Institutional Knowledge and awareness). The elaboration of these communication and stakeholders’ involvement strategies while maintaining a discourse of inclusivity and participation proves that the Master Plan recognizes institutional multiplicity and diversity and aims to avoid a reductionist and narrow approach. This refers to Healey’s (2007) statement: ‘Such a planning does not necessarily work through an explicitly formalised spatial strategy or legally required development plan. Its contribution, its value within the array of governance processes in an urban area, lies in maintaining focus on an awareness of place effects and relations among multiple governance arenas and practices. To this end, those involved in planning have a responsibility to maintain a strategic consciousness of place dynamics.’(Healey, 2007 : 278) ‘Parameter 2: Nourishing Public Realm’ is about creating the right circumstances and spaces that make dialogue and communication possible. If we look back at the communication strategy of the Master Plan, it was set around the provision of multiple typologies of ‘encounter platforms’. The variety of these spaces aims to create the enabling conditions that encourage communication and provide trust zones where stakeholders open-up to dialogue.

The first type of platforms, either respects the clusters driven from the stakeholder mapping or is designed around sectoral and functional basis. It plays a role in conflicts mediation as the experts serve as the connection between the stakeholders and helps avoid confrontation in the beginning of the process, in order to prepare the stakeholders for the second type of platforms. These are the multi-sector platforms which can be considered as ‘episodes’ where dialogue and knowledge sharing is possible and encouraged. The communication that happens during these ‘episodes’ leads to the creation of a mutual understanding and shared ‘culture’ as the stakeholders trespass their ideological boundaries and institutional circles to become aware of the ‘Others’ and acknowledge their involvement. This is what happened whit the client (NEDA) as they started accepting the idea of opening the Technical Committee Meetings to the other stakeholders, which transformed the process into a co-design scheme engaging various stakeholders to reach a joint decision.

In this process, experts are persuaders, mediators, and simulators of information flow, but they are also participants and subjects of that exchange. In this case, I witnessed their vocabulary51 deemed offensive or inappropriate change along with their strategies such as the Half Way Homes Program52 for ISFs that was removed from the Master Plan based on comments from NGOs, POs, LGUs, academe and PCUP. 51 Vocabulary such as ‘encroachment’ of ISFs on Legal Easements 52 A program where beneficiary ISFs shall be given the right of residence within a specific period of time (5 to 10 years) within which they should be able to better their lot. After the specified period, the beneficiary ISFs should move out to make room for succeeding beneficiaries. (MBSDMP-Strategy Building, 2018 : 46)

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This chapter presented and commented the general strategy that the documents of the Master Plan showcase. It serves as a framework for the experts during their practice. The following chapters look into those practices by studying two case studies.

3.B - Case Study 1: Coastal LGUs of Region III A. DESCRIPTION & ANALYSIS During the internship, I was involved in the consultation processes that took place in Region III, and the case of the municipality of Hagonoy stood out as it presented the perfect opportunity to study the collaborative processes of the MBSDMP for the reasons that I describe and analyze below.

The Municipality of Hagonoy, a 1st class coastal municipality which houses 1200053Informal Settlement Households among a total population of 129 80754 people, belonging to the Province of Bulacan.

The Municipality of Macabebea 1st class coastal municipality with a total population of 75 85055people, belonging to the Province of Papamga.

The Municipality of Mariveles, is a 1st class municipality in the province of Bataan, Philippines.

According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 127536 people.

Figure 18.Location Map (Bulacan, Papamga, Bataan). @Source : Google Maps (Modified)

During one of the Technical Committee Meetings, Angel CRUZ, Hagonoy’s current Vice Mayor (20192022) as well as its previous Mayor for the term 2010-213, approached us (the group of experts working on ISFs). He invited us to visit and explore an innovative housing project in the Province of Bulacan. This was the first of a series of encounters with the Vice Mayor.

53 Based on Workshops and Local Plans 54 2015 Census 55 Ibid

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The ISFs team56 took this opportunity to visit the prototype of the project and conduct a Focus Group Meeting with the municipality of Papamga57 where a ‘Floating Home Project’ took place58. It provided as with insight on the specific issues and challenges of the municipality and the Region in general, and how it affected the housing and Informal Settlements problems.

In effect, most of the coastal municipalities of Region III are losing land due to Land Subsidence and Land Sinking, happening each year at outrageous rates (5cm per year for some municipalities59). Excessive ground water extraction is mostly behind this phenomenon. This entails serious environmental and Disaster Risk Reduction concerns, economic losses and transformations, in addition to housing issues as Formal houses are affected and land is no longer available to provide In-City resettlements for the Informal Settlements Families living in Papamga.

To tackle the problem, the Local Government of Papamga started exploring floating housing solutions, guided by Angel Cruz who lived in the Netherlands for 23 years and had connections with Dutch experts dealing with similar challenges. The project is been developed by a group of Dutch experts60in collaboration with TU Delf University since 2016 and currently they are in the phase of monitoring the prototype built in 2018.

As result of the Vice Mayor networking efforts with other municipalities to implement the project on one hand, and with the MBSDMP experts on the other hand to promote it, the Floating Home design concept was adopted by the team, who decided to identify it in the MBSDMP’s action list, as a possible solution to explore and study for Manila Bay. The concept was also discussed and shared with other LGUs and NGAs during the consultative workshops in order to bring awareness to the issues and initiatives of Region III municipalities.

The ‘Floating Homes project’ is not the only occasion Angel Cruz was involved. Upon interviewing the experts on the team, I discovered the background of the relation that links the Vice Mayor to the MBSDMP. Before the existence of the Master Plan, Angel Cruz had reached out to the Dutch Embassy for a solution upon realizing the serious environmental conditions of his hometown, but his efforts did not push through as the municipal scale of Hagonoy was deemed too small for an intervention by the Dutch Government, and the project was put on hold until other municipalities enroll in the cause. In the context of the MBSDMP, Angel Cruz reconnected with the team experts who seized the opportunity to build a relation with a Local Government representative.

“We (experts) identified a window of formulating Local Plans, advantageous for both ends. For us it ensures ownership of the Master Plan, for the LGUs, connection to the Master Plan make it easier for them to get funding for their local plans and programs.” (Interview with JanJaap Brinkman, MBSDMP Team Leader on 21 Aug. 2019) Because of the Vice Mayor’s network, it was also a good opportunity to extend this relation to other municipalities and reach therefore other institutional Sites. In fact, Angel Cruz is also the President of ABBBP (Alyansa ng mgaBaybaying Bayan ng Bulacan at Pampanga) an alliance of 8 coastal municipalities from two provinces (Bulacan and Papamga). During a consultative workshop held in Hagonoy, other municipalities were strategically invited and Angel Cruz gave a speech at the end of the workshop about the importance of joining forces to address the specific common issues that coastal municipalities in Region III face, and the opportunity that the Master Plan presents for these Local Governments. This same process was duplicated in another workshop with the Province of Bataan where he was also invited to give a speech, with the vision of enrolling another Province to the alliance.

56 Tractebel 57The project pushed for by Hagonoy’s current Vice Mayor was developed in Papamga instead as its Local government was more open to Angel’s idea and provided land for the prototype.

58A project by Finch Building, in collaboration with TU Delft Global Initiative. It aims to create affordable, sustainable and typhoon proof homes for developing regions like the Philippines.

59 Based on the consultative workshops and Local Plans 60 From Finch Homes

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“We saw how a solution for one municipality can become a problem for the neighboring municipalities (…) by linking the coastal of three provinces we make the implementation easier, not just for the MBSDMP but for us the beneficiaries (…) this is true for the flooding problem, the Informal Settlements issues, and many other issues… ” (Angel Cruz, speech during consultative Workshop on 16 July 2019) The MBSDMP experts also participated in the discussions to encourage such initiatives by stressing the importance of information exchange that happens through the alliances and the benefits it has in terms of capacity building as the alliance members share the cost of technical groups who are expensive at the scale of one LGU. These activities had the immediate result of two other municipalities in Region III joining the ABBBP alliance.

Angel Cruz was not the only person, the MBSDMP experts sought to enroll and connect with. “The second entry was the Mayor in Bataan61, whose two brothers are respectively a Governor and a Senators”(Interview with JanJaap Brinkman, MBSDMP Team Leader on 21 Aug. 2019).

As part of the communication and stakeholder involvement strategy, the team organized a learning visit to the Netherlands for NEDA,DENR and Mariveles’ Mayor. It was first only intended for NEDA, but the Dutch team members decided to invite the Mayor also. Because of his influence and network, it was the perfect opportunity to establish a connection with him while aligning his perspective to the Master Plan’s priorities. Much like opening the Technical Committee Meetings to other stakeholders, NEDA was against including him at the beginning but ended up agreeing, convinced the same way by the experts, about the importance of networking.

B. ANALYTICAL CONCLUSION The information shared and analyzed for Region III Case Study relates to two parameters from the Collaborative Process practical guidelines.

The First one is ‘Parameter 3: Building Networks’, which in this case, has two aspects to it: the networking performed by the experts leading to relations between them and the stakeholders and the networking among the stakeholders that the MBSDMP is enabling and pushing for.

We saw through the example of Hagonoy’s Vice Mayor and Mariveles’ Mayor how the experts are trying to connect with people with large networks and influences in order to ensure that they will adopt the MBSDMP ideas and take part in spreading them and enrolling other stakeholders from their networks. These individual people were strategically identified because of the potential their resources constitute, and by resources I am referring to both their relation webs and what they manage because of their position as Local Government officials. Here, as mentioned before, the Local level was also selected as a suitable arena where to focus the networking efforts, again because of the stakes of aligning Local Plans to the Master Plan.

The other aspect of the Networking activities is seen through the experts’ attempts to link the stakeholders with each other. This was done by using the formal platforms of both the workshops to encourage LGUs alliances and the learning visit to link the Local Government (through Mariveles Mayor) with the National Government. In the first case, the new relational webs created, feed the mobilizing power of the Master Plan as they allow it to extend its area of influence and reach other institutional arenas, and in the second one it helps break the relational patterns and disturb the embedded practices leading to opportunities of innovation and future collaboration.

Looking at it from a different perspective, the other parameter that the initiatives analyzed in this case study, fall under is ‘Parameter 4: Taking advantage of moments of opportunity’. This is about identifying Angel Cruz -Hagonoy’s Vice Mayor -who had the same perspectives and goals as the Master Plan and then pro-actively engaging him in the communication processes and utilizing his 61Jesse Concepcion, mayor of Mariveles

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networks. And then, in the same way, taking advantage of the site visit that was happening around the same period when building a relation with Mayor was determined as a key opportunity, to reach out to him and engage him.

3. C - Case Study 2: Coastal LGUs of NCR A. DESCRIPTION & ANALYSIS I have showcased above the efforts undertaken by the experts of the Manila Bay Master Plan project to penetrate and influence the Local Institutional arenas in Region III, pushing among other things for more collaboration between the stakeholders. For this second case study, I follow the same analytical process: I start by describing and examining how different is the context and the processes used by the team for Metro Manila and then as a conclusion, I do summary comparison between the context of NCR and Region III and I comment the ‘Collaborative’ aspect of the Master Plan.

As mentioned before in this study, In Metro Manila, the MBSDMP is faced with huge numbers of ISFs (3 million people) and very few available lands for socialized housing and In-City Relocation. The problem reaches another level compared to other municipalities within the Manila Bay Area. But the scale of the problem and the issue of land availability are not the only challenges, as Informal Settlers in NCR have a better organized representation and an active Civil Society that, for decades, have been pushing for its demands to be met and for In-City relocation to be prioritized. This calls for more attention to the communication strategies and participatory stakeholders’ involvement processes.

Reclamation is another big issue in Metro Manila. In 2011, the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA) identified that 38 projects with a total area of 26,234 hectares (the equivalent of approx. 41% of the present surface area of the NCR), were intended to reclaim substantial portions of the nearshore zone of Manila Bay.62 These reclamation projects generate fear of eviction among the squatter families and create tensions and confrontations between the Government and the civil society as thoroughly explained in the ‘Institutional Context’ chapter of this paper.

“VARIOUS cause-oriented organizations expressed fears on Thursday that some 230,000 squatter families would be evicted if reclamation projects along the world-renowned Manila Bay were to push through.” (BusinessMirror, September 6, 2019) This means that the MBSDMP has to manage these conflicts and strong power games, especially since other major interests and other stakeholders such as the private business sector are involved.

“It is about seizing the opportunity. For Bataan and Bulacan, the pre-conditions made it easier. It is easy to get a group together. With LGUs where they have big projects, there a lot of developers’ connections and we don’t know who we are talking To. For Manila City, the previous Mayor was the former President of the ‘Manila association’ doing reclamation projects and making deals with the developers… For Solid Waste and Water Supply, we are trying to talk to private developers, butfor reclamation and other issues it is more complicated.”(Interview with Expert on 21 Aug. 2019).

Metro Manila networks and institutional sites are challenging for the experts to penetrate and mobilize in favor of the MBSDMP’s ideas. The same as fostering dialogue and collaboration among stakeholders with a long history of conflicting major interests is a hard task. Nevertheless, there have been a few diffused potential opportunities for the team to grasp.

62 Manila Bay Situation Atlas

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NAPC organized an Inter-Agency Meeting with DENR, DILG, PRA, NHA and PCUP to discuss the Informal Settlements social rights in relation to reclamation projects and the Manila Bay rehabilitation program led by Manila Bay Task Force. Once again, Manila Bay Master Plan’s experts were invited to the meeting which is a good sign as it reflects that these agencies are aware of the Master Plan and acknowledge its potential. I was not able to follow the meeting as the discussion were in the local language, it seems however according to the meeting report, that each agency addressed NAPC’s concerns by affirming that their actions fall under their mutual responsibilities and all what they are doing is implementing their mandated functions. They agreed however to the importance of considering and integrating the social aspect and implications of their actions.

The discourse of ‘individual responsibilities” was strong and the stakeholders maintained a defensive, restrictive attitude. However, the Inter-Agency meeting created a space where the various agencies shared their values and points of views and ended up reaching an initial general mutual agreement.

The MBSDMP’s team proposed to organize a Small Group Discussion with NAPC, a move that recognizes the importance of enrolling the Civil Society and admits its role regarding addressing the ISFs issues. But most importantly, this initial meeting is a good opportunity as the experts can build on these collaborative initiatives to continue these efforts and push forward more consensusbuilding and coordination.

On the other hand, connecting with the Civil Society is necessary to ensure an inclusive process, avoid conflicts and reach the inclusive growth goals of the Master Plan. As much as it can be challenging to deal with the sector, if the right relations are built it can be a window for the Master Plan to penetrate these arenas and transform their perspective making it more open to collaboration and discussions. In Metro Manila there are already active local NGOs who have that same purpose.

For example, the Land Reclamation Forum is organized by the local NGO Urban Poor Associates in collaboration with other NGOs, with the intent to link the Academe with People Organizations and NGOs in order to educate and raise awareness of the associations representing Informal Settlers.

“People have to recognize that not every place is good for upgrading. In some places, they will be defeated if there is an earthquake ... They should fight for a decent nearby resettlement site. The issues are not that black and white. The NGOs are stuck in the fight framework and do not want to listen, and academics have not been that close... I have been fighting all my life to have academics connect with NGOs...”.(Interview with sociologist on Sept. 3, 2019) “It is important to have overlap situations and this Land Reclamation Forum is exactly that, because these are spaces where people connect with one another and learn from one another and decide together what is to be done.”(Interview with sociologist on Sept. 3, 2019) Apart from the civil society and the Academe, there were no representatives from the Government or the Business Sector during this event. They were left out as involving an authoritative power that is distrusted by the People would change the dynamics and oppose the purpose of educating the POs. The experts however were invited. ‘People still trust the MBSDMP experts” Again, this is a good opportunity for the team to take advantage of these efforts and the trust that the POs have in the technical experts of the Master Plan to slowly expand these activities to other arenas and involve other stakeholders. Due to the short notice, the team was unfortunately unable to attend the Forum and MBSDMP was not represented. The opportunity still presents itself thought, through building and maintaining relations with Urban Poor Associates and the other NGOs behind these initiatives. And at the time of writing this paper, the team is pushing to consult and meet with the NGOs before the next Technical Meeting to ensure that no negative confrontation occurs, leading to create tension between the stakeholders, and harm the collaborative process and the efforts previously undertaken.

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B. ANALYTICAL CONCLUSION I showcase above the main differences between coastal LGUs in Region III where environmental considerations are the core of the problem affecting settlements, and coastal LGUs in Metro Manila where environmental risks are still present, in addition to a ‘Concentration’ featured in the big development projects that covet Manila Bay, the efforts of CSOs that focus their activities in NCR, and urban built-up areas and economic values that lead to land scarcity or increased land values for socialized housing. Such ‘concentration’ results in intense complex and non-transparent webs of relations and interests and creates conflicts that are harder to deal with.

If in Region III connecting the Master Plan to the authoritative power of Local Governments was strategically selected as the most suitable process, in NCR, the team is trying to take advantage of the opportunities that came up to establish a relation with the Civil Society. This refers us both to ‘Parameter 4: Taking advantage of moments of opportunity’ and ‘Parameter 3: Building Networks’.

The networking is done by connecting with the ‘formal power’ that NAPC as a National Government Agency represents. But also through ‘Informal arenas’, by engaging people of influence that belong to Local NGOs. This brings us back to Healey (2007 : 285): ‘’Informal mobilising around issues of specific concern to those with a stake in an area is more likely to generate a real sense of collective concern…’’.Such connections and informal practices that recognize the capacity of the Civil Society and the importance of its involvement in the Master Plan have the potential to transform the perspectives and relations between both parties, the Civil Society and the Government, as the experts become mediators between the two.

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Conclusion

Surely, in the sectoral, plural and fragmented Manila Bay governance system, MBSDMP contribution will have to go beyond a relevant and scientific spatial, strategic proposal. The experts will have to ensure that the Master Plan accumulates enough mobilizing power so that the various and multiple stakeholders will own the Master Plan and implement it afterwards. According to planning theory, this can be achieved through a collaborative approach involving a set of formal practices and informal networking activities that can foster encounter, collaboration and understanding and lead to change.

It has become clear now that the processes used by the experts for MBSDMP are applying the ingredients and framework defined by collaborative planning theories, as demonstrated in the last section of this paper that gives a hint of the intents and position of the experts behind the Master Plan.

This paper showed that collaborative planning processes required the experts to carefully elaborate strategies and study the institutional landscape from the first phases of the project, while constantly been aware and conscious of the changing dynamics, and maintaining a flexible approach to efficiently adapt and take advantage of the opportunities that are presented. Such attitude and perspective are necessary in Manila Bay Region because of the large coverage area that is composed of different administrative entities with different complex governance and institutional systems, with some more challenging than the others.

The experts responded to such fragmented and plural context by changing and mixing their strategies according to the context and targeting various institutional circles and stakeholders from various sectors. They also made continuous efforts to connect and build relations with stakeholders from a wide institutional reach, in order to build trust and create the right enabling conditions for smooth communication and exchange to happen during the ‘encounter spaces’ designed to bring all the parties together.

They also allowed the perspectives from the Civil Society representing the ISFs to nourish and feed their statements and the MBSDMP content, while making sure that the stakes of their involvement and participation is understood and accepted by the authoritative power. Connection with the Civil Society was also sought with the aim to highlight the environmental aspect of settlements on hazard prone areas and attempt to fill the gap between the National vision and the struggles and concerns of the People.

Based on the theory, the aim behind these Collaborative Planning processes is to lead to social change that will make joint action and implementation possible. However, consequences of all the above-mentioned initiatives and efforts, that are still ongoing, will take time to play and be perceived. So, no assessment of their impact can be complete or comprehensive. Based on what has been analyzed in this paper, however, it is possible to foresee their possible transformative potential.

By creating an empowering environment that encourages the active participation and involvement of the various stakeholders, the MBSDMP bring awareness and shed lights on ‘arenas’ and ‘territories’ that have been oppressed and dominated by strong power games. This domination is reflected on the distribution of resources but also through taken for granted and embedded practices that omit to take them into consideration.

For the cases discussed in this paper, this is true for the Civil Society, especially in NCR, and the coastal LGUs in Region III that are self - mobilized to answer their ‘local’ challenges in the absence of a national support. Each had a different reaction to the situation, with CSOs choosing among other things political engagement and confrontation for their concerns to be heard, and the LGUs by seeking international assistance for innovative alternatives such as the ‘Floating Homes’.

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By including them in the debates, communication processes, and strategy design, the Master Plan raises awareness to their issues allowing new insights and shared ideas to arise. Along with the networking efforts that the experts are promoting and encouraging among the stakeholders and the different power levels, these can lead to change the relations and governance landscapes and result in new practices to emerge. This is particularly true for the ISFs issue in Manila Bay where the gap between the ‘communities of practice’ continues to grow: Public Sector’s approaches and representations of the problem are far from the ‘ground’ concerns and demands of People and marginalized groups; the private sector, not fully engaged in the issue continues to seek its interests independently; while the confrontational attitude of the Civil society does not facilitate consent and dialogue.

Among this institutional landscape of National and Local stakeholders, the international sector is involved in the form of planning expertise. In the MBSDMP, the lead is given to the Dutch experts who were, based on my experience and interviews, directing and pushing for the collaborative processes and strategies analyzed in this paper. This raises the question: to which extent is this collaborative approach different from local planning practices and how much did the Dutch intervention contribute in stimulating new directions and processes?

On a more general note, this paper illustrated how an alternative ‘relational’ approach can be applied and showcased how collaborative theoretical principles were incorporated in practice. Both planning theory and the MBSDMP documents and statements highlight inclusiveness as a goal for these processes. This triggers two questions related to: first the moral aspect of planning or in whose interest should planners work, and how can they mix professional obligations toward the client and moral obligations? And second the question of levels of participation or how inclusive are collaborative processes by giving access to strategy-making arenas?

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