As a response to the challenge of coming up with a working startegy to provide decent and affordable housing to the ordinary Filipino family, the University of the Philippines Employees Housing Cooperative (UPEHCO) was organized in March 1990 by a group of academics and cooperative advocates in the Diliman Campus of the University of the Philippines. This initiative was the first ever in the UP community.

UPEHCO program provides housing for the individual, community for the collective.

Upehco's housing strategy utilizes both conventional and non-conventional housing technologies availavle in the country without compromising quality and affordability Its vision-mission is to build ecological and sustainable housing cooperative communities where each resident has a voice in managing the whole community and where the beneficiaries’ creativity and talents could be used for community-building.

Being a self-designing organization, UPEHCO encourages members’ participation in the various stages of housing development - site selection, raw land acquisition, land development, house construction, and day-to-day community living. A Technical Support Group (TSG), an integral part of the organization, composed of engineers, architects, lawyers, community organizers, and cooperative practitioners- oversees all technical matters of all project sites. The first such project was Antipolo housing development, presented below.

Financing the Antipolo Project

Financing for the project comes from the Home Development Mutual Fund (HMDF), more popularly known as the Pag-IBIG Fund under its Group Land Acquisition and Development (GLAD) Program. The UPEHCO-Antipolo housing project is in fact the first GLAD project of HDMF in the National Capital Region (NCR). All 320 benefiiciaries of Antipolo are contributing members of the Fund. The HDMF or the Pag-IBIG fund was established in 1981 as the government's leading institution in housing finance. Members of the fund are those government and private employees earning at least P4,000 who contribute 2% of the salary counterpart. Members of the fund can draw a loan up to P230,000 for house and lot. If the purpose is only to acquire a lot, a member can draw up to 50% of the total loan amount that is P115,000.

Under the GLAD program, financing comes in three phases corresponding to the three project phases - land acquisition, land development and house construction. A borrower-member may draw up to 30% of his loan entitlement (up to P230,000 for house and lot) for land acquisition and up to 20% for land development; or a total of fifty percent (50%) for land acquisition and/or land development; provided the total amount for land acquisition and land development does not exceed P150,000. The remaining 50% may be used for house construction. 

The aggregate loan amount granted to the Cooperative for land acquisition covered 75% of the total project cost. The land development loan covered about 70% of the total cost while the house construction loan represented about 65% of the total cost. Beneficiaries were required to raise equity if their loan due was not enough to cover the total cost.

Progress billings per accomplishment submitted by the contractors were the bases for HDMF loan releases.

Land Development

The first project site of UPEHCO is situated in the rolling hills of Barangay San Luis, Antipolo, Rizal, about 45 minutes drive from the UP Diliman Campus. The development of the 81,868 m²  raw land property commenced on November 15, 1993 and was 99.26% completed on June 30, 1995. Being rugged in terrain, some portions of the property, particularly those adjacent to a live creek, required  slope protection work like grouted stone ripraps. The development of the property conformed with the basic requirements of the PD 957 in so far as lot sizes, roadways and open spaces are concerned.

Before any earthmoving activities were undertaken, the whole property was subject to the various technical surveys and studies, required to receive the different permits and the Environmental Compliance Clearance. Earlier, the Department of Agrarian Reform had also issued the UPEHCO-Antipolo project an agrarian reform exemption certificate.

Excavation, cleaning, grubbing and other earth moving work involved a total of 81,868 m², thewhole area of the property. All materials used for earthworks and road development conformed to the standard specifications of the Department of Public Works and Highways of the Philippine Government. In view of the heavy rainfall during the rainy season, the organization laid underground reinforced concrete lined ditch.

As to water facilities, the UPEHCO hired the management services of Aquadyne Inc., to ove see drilling of boreholes for two deep wells. Borrowing was undertaken by Hydrodrillers Inc. The two boreholes were 149 and 167 meters deep, cutting through the adobe-like structures way below ground surface. Based on tests conducted, the projected daily yield is enough to satisfy the water requirements of all 320 beneficiaries and their families.

Recognizing the technical know-how limitation of the cooperative, the UPEHCO contracted Jose S. Aliling, Inc., a locally based construction management group with extensive experience in horizontal and vertical technical management, to provide project management for land development phase of the project. To chose a contractor for  horizontal work, J. Aliling Inc., recommended to proceed with a closed bidding process.

The contract was eventually awarded to Concrete Aggregates Corporation (CAC), a local contractor ranked as one of the top ten contractors in the country. CAC supplied its own its own batching plant and fleet of equipment, not to mention their pool of well-experienced engineers. CAC has an extensive experience in both private and government horizontal construction projects.

Realizing that conventional methods of construction is costly and inefficient, UPEHCO searched for an alternative housing technology that would be appropriate for the project. UPEHCO found the answer with the Vazbuilt System. To qualify as a UPEHCO housing contractor, the Vazbuilt System had to be accredited with the Accreditation of Innovative Technologies for Housing (AITECH) from the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council  (HUDCC), the policy-making government institution for housing and urban development. The Vazquez Building Systems Corp. (Vazbuilt) was at the time the housing contractor of Laguna Properties Holdings Inc. (LHPI), the mass housing arm of Ayala Land Inc. Vazbuilt has since then constructed 3,000 houses for various LPHI housing Projects in Laguna and Batangas. UPEHCO commissioned VAzbuilt to build two mid-cost model houses, one 48 m² and the other 36 m² in its property in Antipolo, Rizal.

Realizing that the Filipino working class deserves a decent affordable house, the Vazbuilt System was invented in 1991 by Edgardo Vazquez, the incumbent president of the Filipino Inventor's Society (FIS). The system is patented in the Philippines, with patent pending in the United States. The technology is similar to a "lego" structure, easy to assemble and fast to disassemble into its different working components.

This article saw print in Construction & Public Works Asia Vol. 4 No. 6 December 1997

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