ranging from PHP60,000 to PHP100,000. Section 30 prohibits the construction of new structures in any areas from which the Act requires persons to be resettled. The DILG and HUDCC have jointly enacted Implementing Rules and Regulations pursuant to section 27 to govern the summary eviction of those classed as professional squatters or squatting syndicates. These IRRs reiterate the prohibitions of section 27 of the Act and provide the requirements for the summary eviction. They do not provide any further guidance on how an individual or family is determined to belong to either of the categories prohibited by section 27 of the UDHA. The only clarification in this regard is offered by section 3(m) of the UDHA which defines professional squatters as: ‘individuals or groups who occupy lands without the express consent of the landowner and who have sufficient income for legitimate housing. The term shall also apply to persons who have previously been awarded homelots or housing units by the Government but who sold, leased or transferred the same to settle illegally in the same place or in another urban area, and non-bona fide occupants and intruders of lands reserved for socialized housing.’ Section 3(s) defines squatting syndicates as ‘groups of persons engaged in the business of squatter housing for profit or gain’. Of initial concern is the vague and ambiguous definition of professional squatters. There is no certainty as to when a family or individual will reach the threshold of ‘sufficient income’, nor is there any specification of which forms of housing are ‘legitimate’. This language is imprecise and liable to be utilised arbitrarily and inconsistently by courts and local government decision-makers to summarily evict people from their homes and circumvent the due process requirements of section 28. Evidence of this can be seen in jurisprudence of the Philippine Supreme Court where, in SMPMI v. BCDA77, it was held that the use of cement in the construction of dwellings is evidence of ‘sufficient income’: ‘the photos of the structures that were demolished reveal that these were built with cement and other strong materials costing a lot of money and such structures were not mere shanties of small value. As such, the owners of these structures, the SMPMI members, have the financial capacity and resources to build their own housing facilities which take them out of the ambit of protection under RA 7279. In fact, they would even be considered as professional squatters under Section 3 (m) of RA 7279’. To assert that the appearance of cement in a housing structure can prove the capacity of a household to afford adequate housing is entirely arbitrary. The nature of construction materials is an inaccurate measure to test household income, and cannot account for a whole range of other variables which affect individual financial capacity, such as actual earnings from employment, number of children and other dependents, level of household debt and assets owned. The absence of definition in the UDHA allows for such an application of the category of professional squatters by courts and decision-makers to suit their own sympathies. This concern was supported by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions in its submissions made to the 2008 cycle of Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights 77 G.R. No. 142255. 43