...and a new life in the province
Imagine having your own 40-sqm lot, with a 28-sqm house that has one bedroom, granite flooring, 1,000 liter water tank, and solar panel. Imagine this located in your home province, where you’ve always wanted to go back.
Your monthly amortization for this humble but solid house you can call your own? P500 a month, payable for 30 years.
Now imagine having a livelihood to go with that house.
These benefits await beneficiaries of the Balik Probinsya program, which aims to decongest Metro Manila by bringing probinsyanos home to their province—a two-year program that will be kickstarted on Sept. 2 and will last until the end of the current administration.
“The program is more than just the transfer of informal settlers from the slums of Metro Manila back to their home provinces. It represents a shift in the development mindset of many of our planners who for so long have focused government attention and resources on the urban areas,” says Manny Pinol, the former secretary of the Department of Agriculture who is now the head of MinDA, which coordinates the program for Mindanao.
If you want to join the Balik Probinsya program, here are 10 things to know, according to Jun Escalada, the general manager of the National Housing Authority, and Manny Pinol, chairperson of the Mindanao Development Authority.
- You can sign up online, and will be prioritized if you are an informal settler.
Informal settlers in Metro Manila are the first beneficiaries of the program. All that they need to do is go to www.balikprobinsya.ph.
- So far, only four provinces are joining the program.
The pilot provinces that will receive the Balik Probinsya beneficiaries are Camarines Sur, Leyte, Lanao del Norte, and Zamboanga del Norte. Only the previous residents of these provinces are encouraged to “go home.”
- Many agencies will work together to make sure there’s both houses + livelihood.
The Balik Probinsyap Program is a Whole-of-Nation-Approach strategy where the different departments are expected to contribute. NHA for housing, DSWD for initial food and housing support, TESDA for livelihood training, DA for food production support, and many more.
- It’s going to be patterned after the Kibbutz villages in Israel.
MinDA, the coordinating agency for Mindanao, has designed the resettlement areas patterned after the Kibbutz villages of Israel where residents are involved in one major common production activity with a complete value chain. In Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte, for example, the design is a community in a 6.3-hectare area involved in the production of organic chicken and vegetable, even before the establishment of the livelihood projects. A buyer has already been identified thus completing the value chain needed to assure the beneficiaries of sustainable livelihood activities.
- All houses have same quality but different designs.
The houses will be of the same quality but possibly different designs depending on the availability of materials for construction but it was agreed that it would all be concrete house complete with tile floors and other amenities. Manny Pinol says, “The beneficiaries will only need to bring in the furniture and beds, including kitchenware.” The standard design of NHA will be adopted, which is 28 sqm floor area, 40 square meter lot with granite flooring, a 1,000 liter water tank, and solar panel.
- It’s very affordable.
Beneficiaries will pay P500 per month for 30 years.
- It will be rolled out in phases.
“For 2020, we target to facilitate 5,000 persons more or less from Sept. 2 to Dec 14,” says Jun. “We need to be careful due to health protocols.” But the total target is 200,000 beneficiaries until June 30, 2022.
- The program isn’t just about a cheap house—which you won’t want to sell.
The Balik Probinsya Program will ensure that the families will have a reason to stay and they will have to pay for the value of the houses given to them. Says Pinol, “In the Mindanao setting, we will inculcate into the minds of the beneficiaries that while government will support them initially, nothing comes free.”
- You can choose from as many jobs as possible for your training.
“The livelihood and other interventions are based on the intention of the beneficiaries, and there are questions in the individual profile that need to be answered as basis for specific intervention,” says Jun. So far, the livelihood that about 90,000 applicants have chosen include:
| Buy and Sell | 6.03 % |
| Catering | 2.14 % |
| Construction | 4.64 % |
| Employment | 19.51 % |
| Farming | 17.68 % |
| Fishing | 4.50 % |
| Livestocks | 7.42 % |
| Mechanic | 0.54 % |
| Parlor Service | 0.85 % |
| Retail | 16.20 % |
| Spa/Massage | 0.58 % |
| Transport service |
10. This isn’t just for the good individual people, but to help the provinces prosper.
“The neglect of the countryside has resulted in the modern-day diaspora of rural folks seeking greener pastures and jobs in the big cities and even overseas where many women work under exploitative conditions leaving behind broken families,” says Pinol. “The other adverse effect is a largely underdeveloped agriculture and fisheries, thus accounting for the highest number of poor families.”