The Philippine participation in HABITAT was the climax of several years of preparatory work. Shortly after the UN Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972, which recommended that a conference on human settlements be held, the Philippine government became one of the first countries to officially recognize human settlements as a major concern of the government. Through an Executive Order, the Task Force on Human Settlements (TFHS) was established. The TFHS was the Philippine response to the international effort to focus attention on the plight of millions of people living in miserable and substandard conditions in existing human settlements.