"Jobs must first be available in the provinces."
"Jobs must first be available in the provinces."
Senator Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go got it right when he called on the national government to initiate “balik probinsiya” or a back-to-the-province program, having realized that populations that are highly centralized in urban areas pose a great danger when an epidemic, or a pandemic, strikes. The more dense the population is, the higher the likelihood of spreading the disease and the encountering difficulty in controlling the situation. This has contributed largely to the government’s slow response in providing assistance to those affected.
Go adds that the situation has been aggravated by the lack of urban planning and rural development. The spread of the virus in congested areas has also affected the distribution of resources.
As such, Go said that once the Enhanced Community Quarantine is lifted, the government should prepare to move Filipino families out of Metro Manila, but only after the pandemic has been totally controlled.
In doing so, national agencies and local government units will have an easier time in providing assistance to families when necessary. This is aside from the fact that the program, if executed effectively, will solve Metro Manila’s worsening traffic problem.
And to effect his proposal, Go is proposing that those who wish to avail themselves of the program be provided incentives and livelihood opportunities.
And that is where the problem lies. We need to entice those who have migrated to Metro Manila from the provinces in pursuit of the proverbial greener pastures, through incentives and livelihood opportunities. The much-maligned 4Ps not only failed to achieve its objective of uplifting beneficiaries from poverty in general, but also promoted a culture of mendicancy.
The negative effect of the 4Ps was exposed during the imposition of the Enhanced Community Quarantine.
It should be recognized that almost all of the beneficiaries of the 4Ps lack entrepreneurial skills. If they did have some entrepreneurial skills, they would have long utilized their 4Ps allocation for some livelihood opportunities.
If we are indeed serious in enticing them back to their provinces, we should take into consideration the very reason why they had to migrate here in the first place—that is to try their luck in finding jobs that their hometowns cannot provide.
So, for that reason, Go should prioritize his other proposal which is to encourage investors to bring their businesses to the province to encourage development in the countryside.
If job opportunities exist, the government would not have a hard time convincing people to return to their respective provinces. To entice investors to bring their businesses out of the provinces, government operations should be decentralized to make it easier for these businesses to process their documentary requirements.
In fact, we could even go back to the proposal of Quezon Gov. Danilo Suarez to move national government offices outside of Metro Manila.
In his proposal aired during a media forum late last year, Suarez on Friday urged the Palace to look into his proposal of transferring the country’s main government offices to the Pacific corridor in a bid to decongest Metro Manila.
Suarez said he prefers to relocate national government offices to Quezon, not because it is his province but because most of the country’s trading partners are on the Pacific side.
Doing so would create around five million new job opportunities for Filipinos in the government and private sectors, should the proposal push through, according to Suarez. And that’s only for Quezon alone.
Suarez, however, maintains that Metro Manila should still be the financial and commercial center of the country.
Decongesting Metro Manila has become more imperative than ever as the country struggles to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease. With social distancing becoming the new normal even after we come out of this pandemic, we can no longer afford any congested area in any part of the country.
As Go aptly says, one important step is to move people from cities to the provinces—and we can only do this with corresponding employment opportunities, which drove them here to Metro Manila in the first place.