Deputy Speaker LRay Villafuerte has moved to fast-track the implementation of the Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-Asainitiative of President Rodrigo Duterte by proposing new legislation establishing township revitalization programs nationwide in a bid to finally decongest Metro Manila and create more jobs and self-employment opportunities in rural communities against the backdrop of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
In filing House Bill (HB) No. 6970, Villafuerte is banking on public investments and incentives as the linchpin of a two-pronged approach to encourage people who have migrated to the heavily congested National Capital Region (NCR) to return to their home provinces and for those who have opted to stay put in their cities or municipalities to remain there instead of relocating to Metro Manila in search of jobs or better livelihood opportunities.
“Legislating the Balik Probinsya bill will relieve the socio-economic effects of urban congestion and concentration of economic activity in Metro Manila.”
HB 6970 provides for “comprehensive, multi-sectoral planning and a mix of top-down and bottom-up policy interventions that will channel public investment and create incentives for growth in the countryside” by encouraging businesses to relocate or expand to rural areas via a slew of government come-ons such as tax breaks; incentives for relocation and creation of new jobs; and low-interest loans and financial aid for investors who will engage in rural industrialization.
Villafuerte is also a lead author of HB 6864, the House-approved bill aiming to gear up Filipinos to the “better normal” way of life via social or physical distancing plus other health and safety protocols to prevent transmission of the highly infectious COVID-19, which World Health Organization (WHO) officials expect to stay with us for a long time.
Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano and some 196 other solons have co-authored HB 6864.
Villafuerte and Cayetano are also the lead authors of the House-approved HB 6709 or the COVID-19 Unemployment Reduction Economic Stimulus (CURES) Act, which is a P1.3-trillion, three-year stimulus program anchored on accelerated spending in the countryside on health, education, agriculture, local roads, livelihood, information and communication technology (ICT) and tourism (HEAL IT) infrastructure.
Villafuerte said: “The flip side of urban congestion came to the fore amid the global health emergency as Metro Manila, which is the world’s 15th most densely populated city—according to data from the CityMayorsStatistics, a global source for urban statistics—easily became COVID-19’s epicenter in the country, accounting for 68% or almost 7 out of every 10 infections.”
HB 6970 was filed on the heels of President Duterte’s issuance of Executive Order (EO) No. 114, which mandates a multi-sectoral comprehensive program to decongest NCR and encourage Filipino workers here and abroad to go back to their home regions and live—and work—there for good.
EO 114 was issued last May 6 following Duterte’s endorsement of this back-to-the-provinces program when Senator Bong Go, who is Balik Probinsya’s lead advocate, spoke about it during one of the President’s televised public addresses.
“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 will 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,” Villafuerte said.
Dubbed the Balik Probinsya Act of 2020, HB 6970 aims to establish a National Action Plan (BP-NAP) whose main goal is to make permanent public investments and incentives meant to “steer the dispersal of economic activity from Metro Manila to the Philippine countryside.”
“This bill will encourage workers in Metro Manila and other urban centers to go back to their hometowns where gainful employment awaits them.”
Although there had been past government attempts to decongest NCR and create more jobs and livelihood opportunities in the provinces, Villafuerte said that none actually succeeded in the absence of a multi-sectoral program anchored on public investments and incentives.
He explained that this two-pronged approach of public investments and incentives had been the catalyst for successful programs to create townships and transform rural communities into new growth areas in the United States and Europe.
In the US, the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act of 1972 mandated the government to, among others, extend loans to residents of rural areas for the establishment small business enterprises, provide grants for water and waste disposal systems, and construct various public facilities, he said.
In the United Kingdom, he said, the New Towns Movement from 1946 to 1976 established towns or garden cities after World War II that helped decentralize London’s population and industries, leading to the relocation of Londoners to a series of satellite towns outside the UK capital.
Villafuerte envisions the BP-NAP to have six main components, namely: (1) Work Skills Profiling and Matching, (2) Comprehensive Mapping of Balik Probinsya Special Economic Zones, (3) Public Investment in Physical and Social Infrastructure, (4) Incentives for Locators or Re-locators (5) Work Skills Upgrading or Re-Orientation and Capacity Development, and (6) Township Revitalization Programs.
The bill seeks to institutionalize the Balik Probinsya Council (BPC) as provided for in EO 114, and will be tasked with additional functions—aside from those listed in EO 114—like (1) developing the BP-NAP; (2) mandating financial institutions through the Department of Finance (DOF) and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to put up loan programs for rural enterprises; (3) and recommend to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and Office of the President (OP) the channeling of official development assistance (ODA) from multilateral financial institutions to priority rural enterprises.
Under the bill, these priority rural enterprises entitled to government support include: (1) Contract-Farming or Grower’s Agreement on crop production: (2) agribusiness enterprise involving the production of raw materials and their processing into intermediate and finished products; (3) any enterprise established in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that have the potential of being developed into either agro-industrial zones, fisheries and aquatic special economic zones, import-export processing zones, tourism/recreational zones, mineral development zones or free trade economic zones; (4) registered enterprises with domestic and/or foreign investments or business expansion as classified under the Omnibus Investment Act and with either a pioneer or non-pioneer enterprise status, (5) enterprises established under the bill’s Township Revitalization Program; and (6) any other enterprise that the BPC may authorize to receive the incentives spelled out in HB 6970.
In 2019, the Asian Development Bank tagged Metro Manila as the most congested natural city in Asia with a population greater than 5 million.
As soon as the BPC is set up, it shall conduct or commission the conduct of a study/survey, in cooperation with the appropriate government agencies, that will profile all workers who could potentially be encouraged to join the Balik Probinsya program.
These would-be beneficiaries include local or foreign-based Filipino workers displaced or at risk of displacement, such as repatriated overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) or those who have applied for repatriation as an offshoot of COVID-19 or other epidemics and pandemics that may emerge, or any other causes that disrupt their employment.
The proposed survey shall primarily document the skill sets and employment histories of these workers, their provinces of origin; and the socio-economic profile of the communities to where they will be returning.
HB 6970 provides that the Provincial Development Councils (PDCs) of the provinces, cities and municipalities entitled to Balik Probinsya incentives shall recommend annually to the BPC the priority enterprises that they believe should be given preferential grant of the incentives.
“Legislating the Balik Probinsya bill will relieve the socio-economic effects of urban congestion and concentration of economic activity in Metro Manila. It will assist in stimulating growth at the Philippine countryside as workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic are constrained to go back to their respective provinces,” Villafuerte said.
“By incentivizing business and other economic activities in the provinces, this bill will encourage workers in Metro Manila and other urban centers to go back to their hometowns where gainful employment awaits them,” he added.
To stem the further spread of COVID-19, Villafuerte pointed to the “urgent need for: (1) the decongestion of Metro Manila being the most densely populated; (2) rehabilitation of outdated infrastructures caused by increasing population in NCR; (3) redirection and decentralization of opportunities to all regions of the country; (4) establishment of the new normal environment requiring decreased number of people in proportion to the area occupied; and (5) urbanization of other underdeveloped provinces with wide-ranging potentials for progress.
With a population density of 20,785 persons per square kilometer (sq. km)–or 60 times higher than the 337 persons per sq. km at the national level–Metro Manila is ranked 15th among the most densely populated cities in the world.
In 2019, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) tagged Metro Manila as the most congested natural city in Asia with a population greater than 5 million.
Earlier, Villafuerte, offered a 300-hectare industrial estate within Camarines Sur’s Provincial Capitol complex near the Naga Airport as the first Balik Probinsya site where companies in Metro Manila could relocate to or open for business once the coronavirus pandemic is over.
Villafuerte got in touch with Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Ramon Lopez last month to offer as a possible Balik Probinsyarelocation complex the Camariner Sur government’s sprawling complex in the provincial capital of Pili that is just a five-minute drive from the Naga Airport.
This 300-hectare property is ideal for investors, he said, as it is already equipped with the necessary infrastructure such as fiber optic internet connection along with available power or electricity and water and accessibility.
Villafuerte said there is a business processing outsourcing (BPO) company already operating in the industrial park accredited by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) within the 300-hectare estate.