(c) Home Guaranty Corporation (HGC) HGC’s primary task is promoting housing assistance to middle and low-income families by way of providing risk coverage or guarantees and tax/fiscal incentives to banks and development institutions or investors engaging in granting housing development loans and home financing. The guaranty programmes of HGC are: i. Developmental Loan Guarantee, which covers loans extended to developers for the development of subdivisions, townhouses, dormitories, apartments and other residential dwellings; ii. Retail Loan Guarantee, which covers loans and credit facilities extended for the purchase / acquisition of a single family residence; and iii. Guarantee for Securitisation Schemes, which provides guarantee cover on securities and/or financial instruments or on the receivables backing-up the securities. (d) National Home M ortgage Finance Corporation (NHM FC) NHMFC’s mandate is to increase the availability of affordable housing loans to finance the Filipino homebuyer acquisition of housing units through the development and operation of a secondary market for home mortgages. It directly lends money to housing developers and individual/group borrowers for this purpose. (e) Focus of Housing Finance As mentioned in Chapter 4, the Committee on ESC rights has previously taken issue with the nature of housing finance in the Philippines, and its focus on middle to high income earners.82 While there is some merit in financing schemes for middle income earners, the Government should clearly be focusing its fiscal attention on those most in need. The CESCR’s recommendations should be followed and a higher proportion of the national budget should be devoted to programmes that cater to the poorest citizens, particularly the community mortgage programme or other similar measures designed to eradicate poverty. 6.3 Civil Society Actors In addition to advocacy for the rights of the urban poor, civil society has played a central role in the delivery of innovative housing services in the Philippines. A variety of NGOs, including IPD, provide assistance to urban poor communities to organise themselves into cooperatives to mobilise support for fairer resettlement outcomes. Urban poor communities facing eviction and resettlement often prefer to deal with or through NGOs and cooperatives to engage with government where necessary. In the 82 See: above, n. 11. 52  Human Rights in the Rubble