Tearing Down the Shanties

The taxi I was in took a wrong turn and we ended up on a road where people from the City Legal Office were tearing down squatter's shacks and shanties.  You've seen them. They build these lean-to shacks against someone's wall. It attracts filth and makes the road much narrower than it should be and is a complete nuisance. I don't know why these places are allowed to stay up for so long. I wish I could have stopped to take more and better pictures but here are the pictures I was able to take.

Where will these people go?  What will they do now that their makeshift sari-sari stores and houses have been torn down? I don't know. The solution to poverty is not simple. But allowing people to build unsafe shanties wherever they please is not it.

The preamble of the constitution says:

We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, in order to build a just and humane society...

Article XIII, "Social Justice and Human Rights", has this to say:

Section 9. The State shall, by law, and for the common good, undertake, in cooperation with the private sector, a continuing program of urban land reform and housing which will make available at affordable cost, decent housing and basic services to under-privileged and homeless citizens in urban centers and resettlement areas. It shall also promote adequate employment opportunities to such citizens. In the implementation of such program the State shall respect the rights of small property owners. 

Section 10. Urban or rural poor dwellers shall not be evicted nor their dwelling demolished, except in accordance with law and in a just and humane manner.  

No resettlement of urban or rural dwellers shall be undertaken without adequate consultation with them and the communities where they are to be relocated.

https://www.lawphil.net/consti/cons1987.html

Now with all the noise about making a new constitution its funny that this same exact clause is in the newly proposed federal constitution. But why? This whole section keeps referring to "The State." Who is "The State"? It's not Congress and it's not the President or else specific mention would have been made of either of those two entities. Article 2 sec 3 says the AFP must defend "the State."  Article 2 sec 4 makes mention of the Government and "the State" so "the State" is not the Government. This leads me to believe that "the State" is the physical land which makes up the nation of the Philippines.

Article two then gives a list of state policies that all begin with "The State shall" though just what "the State" is is never defined. But if "the State" is just the land then how can "the State" do anything!? This constitution is a mess to say the least. If anything needs to be amended in the 1987 constitution it's the use of the nebulous term "the State" among other things.

If "the State" means the government then just looking around it does not seem this part of the constitution is being employed by "the State." And how would it employ this part of the law anyway? These are just declarations of responsibilities and not legislation dictating how those responsibilities will be fulfilled. But that's the Philippines for you. People with big hearts who want to do good but have no idea how to do it and then they get caught up in the moment end up pocketing all the money!