Balik sa probinsya

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

The government has started a program to encourage people from the provinces to go back home as another attempt to decongest Metro Manila.

The program called “Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-Asa” (Back to the Province, New Hope) Program or BP2, was implemented last May 20 when the first beneficiaries of 112 probinsyanos left for their hometowns in Leyte.

Under the BP2, different government assistance programs awaited the first batch to ensure that their homecoming would be a happy one. Imagine 22 government agencies joined hands to assure the home comers that they made the best choice not only in going home but making their lives better than slugging it out in the crowded Metro Manila.

The local governments where they lived were tasked to assist them find employment or start a livelihood. This means opening opportunities, developing skills, providing training, helping those with health problems, and making sure that they would not regret coming back home.

That the first batch were from Leyte is symbolic because the one who started this idea was the former First Lady Imelda Marcos from Leyte, but despite the powers of martial law the program fizzled out.

To implement this program a BP2 Council was created. However, Deputy Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte Jr. probably thinks that a council is not enough to get this program going, so he filed a bill to support the implementation of the government with the force of law, not just another program that would be junked by another administration.

Villafuerte’s House Bill (HB) 6970, or the “Balik Probinsya Act of 2020,” seeks to establish township revitalization programs nationwide to encourage people, who migrated to cities to return to their home provinces and those who are in the provinces, to remain there.

He explained that “encouraging Metro Manila-based workers to return to their home provinces against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic will only become an effective strategy to decongest the metropolis and spur genuine rural growth and development if government would provide the essential physical and social infrastructure, tax incentives and other financial assistance not only to entice Filipinos to make an exodus to the countryside, but also encourage those residing in their provinces to stay put.”

The Camarines Sur lawmaker admitted that “there had been attempts in the past to decongest the National Capital Region and create more jobs and livelihood opportunities in the provinces, but these did not succeed because of the lack of a multisectoral program anchored on public investments and incentives.”

The news did not cite what incentives are to be given to the probinsyanos and their local governments and what investments there would be to ensure that the LGUs cooperate.

While the program appears pragmatic the question is whether the local government are willing to accept them back because these people would be another burden to their hometowns. Of course, their hometowns cannot refuse them, but their homecoming would be most welcome if the government made clear what incentives there would be and what investments the national government would extend to the balikbayan.

The probinsyanos cannot be forced to return home; the incentives must be clearly attractive and sustaining. Can the government assure them of a better life home? We must consider that they left home because there was nothing or little there was for their future.

Let us have a simple situation. Many of those who work as house helpers in Manila were recruited from the provinces. They went to Manila because their wages are higher there than in the provinces. They send money home, just like the Overseas Filipino workers. Sending them back home, is akin to asking the OFWs to go home.

The question then: can the government compensate their incomes to be able to help their families than being in Manila or like the OFWs abroad?

It is often said that the diaspora of OFWs drains the nation of skilled worker which is true; on the other hand they help sustain the national economy, the reason that they are called “modern heroes” although there is really nothing heroic about having to work abroad to give the family left at home  a better life than working in the native land.

Sending the probinsyanos back home to help decongest Manila is an ideal that has failed before as it will be now. It is like sending our OFWs back home.