NATIONAL Housing Authority general manager Marcelito Escalada Jr. believes up to one million families may enrol under the “Balik Probinsiya” program of the government and return to their home provinces within the next six months.
Interviewed on Tuesday at the “Laging Handa” public briefing, Escalada, who also acts as executive director of the Balik Probinsya program, said 5,000 families have enlisted since the online application was launched last Friday, May 8.
“In a matter of four days we were able to get more than 5,000 enrollees. That’s a big number. If this will be a trend, there will be an exponential [number of] enrollees every now and then, perhaps we can hit the figure in the next six months of one million residents of Metro Manila,” he said.
Escalada acknowledged that the idea behind the program is nothing new but added the present one is distinguished by the willingness and cooperation of provinces to absorb the migrating families.
“If the question is, ‘Are the LGUs ready?’ I think this is one model that will sidestep the previous reasons for failure. Before, it was a one-way communication which caused the program to bog down. But right now, this is a two-way or even multi-sectoral approach to solving the problem,” he explained.
He said the provinces of Leyte, Camarines Sur, Zamboanga Del Norte, Bukidnon, Lanao Del Norte, Pangasinan, Marinduque, and Quirino have signified willingness to participate in the program.
The key considerations at present are the observance of existing health protocols because of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuring the host LGUs would not be unduly burdened, he said.
“Cooperating government agencies will provide individual benefits to the enrollees, but we will also provide institutional benefits and incentives to the LGUs. In the case of DHSUD [Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development] and NHA, we have P50 million for LGUs and another P25 million for housing,” Escalada said.
Additional assistance to the receiving provinces and municipalities will be provided by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) as cooperating agencies.
Human Settlements Secretary Eduardo del Rosario said an inventory of unoccupied and ready for occupancy government housing units in the provinces showed there at least 3,000 houses under the NHA that are available for the enrolled families.
The shelters are located in various regions under the socialized housing projects of the NHA.
Del Rosario said the risks of urban congestion was highlighted by the present COVID-19 crisis as the government had to resort to drastic steps, including locking down entire regions and enforcing quarantine for millions of people to control the spread of the virus.
“Because of the effects of COVID-19 in highly dense cities or areas, we all saw the dangers of a huge density of population caused by internal migration will be a big problem in all cities in the world,” he pointed out.
He said there have been estimates that by 2050, 65 percent of Filipinos will be living in cities or roughly 102 million of the projected 175 million local population by that time.
For the DHSUD the challenge is farming out contracts to build more housing units in the provinces and spark economic development by creating townships.
Escalada said that as of 2015, there were 12.5 million Metro Manila residents.
“By now, that number could have climbed (to) as high as 18 to 20 million already — for Metro Manila alone. So that’s a very big number in terms of the density, land distribution per family, per person. It’s basic that we should try to decongest Metro Manila and other urban centers,” he said.
He added the immediate concern is to make the public realize that there are now opportunities to make a decent living outside of the urban centers.
“We need to spread regional development and balance this development by providing other opportunities for the people in the countryside. So that is the basic framework of the program,” he added.
He noted that jobs are available in 490 economic zones located in the countryside where land and affordable labor costs are available.
“We need to decentralize economic opportunities, as well as government operations to make the process of moving back to the provinces more attractive. I think those are the two basic principles, to be followed by necessary infrastructure for the agriculture, for roads and utilities, and even schools, universities and colleges,” Escalada said.
