Competitive LGUs key to making ‘Balik Probinsya’ work

THE recently announced Balik Probinsya, Bagong

Pag- asa — or “Back to the Province, New Hope” in Filipino — program of the government has been met with a great deal of skepticism, and it is understandable why. The idea of decongesting Metro Manila’s overcrowded slums and distributing some economic activity to other parts of the country has been around since at least the Marcos administration, but has never been successful, and there is nothing about the sketchy details of the Duterte administration’s PLAN THAT INSPIRES CONfiDENCE THIS ATTEMPT WOULD be any different.

The reason it is an inevitable disappointment is that it lacks depth, and the reason that it does is that initiatives at the national level are only practical within a three- or four-year timeframe due to the peculiar nature of this country’s political framework. But at the local government level — from the provincial level and downward — there is a greater chance of policy continuity.

The peculiarity of the local levels of government is that there is a great deal of “hereditary” rule. This is something that most fans of democracy consider more than a little dubious, but which, in the context of the Balik Probinsya program, does have some practical advantages — might as well embrace the reality and make the best use of it to pursue the sort of long-range planning and development the initiative would need to succeed.

Start with the basics

IN ORDER TO fiGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE THE PROGRAM work, we need to consider its objective in the simplest possible terms, harsh though it may sound. The goal is to reduce Metro Manila’s overall population by removing its most problematic component — that part of the population that is most at risk in terms of health and safety, and which, on an individual or household basis, presents the least positive and, in many cases, a NEGATIVE COST-BENEfiT RATIO.

Don’t look at me that way. The only way to SOLVE A PROBLEM IS TO DEfiNE IT AS FRANKLY AS POSsible, even if it stings. This is going to a good place, trust me.

To achieve that goal in a productive, valueadded way — there really is no point to doing it any other way — the broad program must provide those people with a superior alternative to living in relative squalor in

the metropolis. That means providing, at a minimum, a variety of economic opportunities, jobs and an environment that supports entrepreneurship; access to safe, comfortable and affordable housing; satisfactory access to ESSENTIAL STATE SERVICES, fiNANCIAL services and banking, social support, health care, and educaTION; AND SUFfiCIENT WATER, POWER, communications and transport infrastructure.

When considered in those terms, it becomes immediately clear that achieving Balik Probinsya’s goal has almost nothing to do with the people involved, and everything to do with the places involved — the provinces to which the unwashed masses will be returning in search of a fresh start. Rather than regard the responsibility for making Balik Probinsya work as a burden, however, provinces should view it as an opportunity. If done right, the returnees would not simply be more mouths to shelter and feed, but a valuable resource in the form of an expanded, multiskilled workforce and consumer market.

There’s an app for that

The initiative is an excellent policy

area in which to apply a concept that I had done some work on last year (“Building competitive local governments,” Sept.1, 2019) using my favorite province, Masbate, as the test case. It’s called the Competitive Province Initiative (CPI), and it applies to the Balik Probinsya project for two reasons: having inherited the responsibility for carrying it out, the provinces will have to compete with one another to attract development and commercial investment to support the effort; and then compete with one another to attract the valueadding human capital the returnees represent in order to make those investments sustainable.

There is quite a bit to the CPI, as it is obviously intended to be tailored to the unique needs of the province where it is being applied, but the basic framework is derived from the World Economic Forum’s “12 pillars of competitiveness.” These ARE APPROPRIATELY MODIfiED INTO 10 pillars for a provincial-level setting:

Institutions THAT ARE EFfiCIENT, ETHICAL, OPERATE as leanly as possible, and produce measurable results.

- Sound institutions. - Robust infrastructure.

Physical infrastructure, transportation facilities and networks, public utilities, and communications that are appropriate in terms of capacity, location and cost-effectiveness.

Public finances should be handled in a

- Stable fiscal framework.