Quirino first province to institutionalize BP2

UNION of Local Authorities of the Philippines President and Quirino Gov. Dakila Carlo Cua urged fellow governors to institutionalize the government’s “Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-Asa “(BP2) program at the provincial level, saying the support and cooperation of local government units is crucial in the government’s efforts to promote economic development in the regions.

Cua, who is also the national chairman of the League of Provinces of the Philippines, pointed out that provincial governments “should be working within their localities [in order] that they are better prepared to work with the national government as it rolls out the BP2 program in the coming months.”

He said Quirino was the first province to institutionalize the BP2 program at the provincial level via Executive Order (EO) 18, series of 2020, issued on June 2, 2020.

The EO establishes the Quirino BP2 Task Force, the provincial counterpart of the BP2 Council established by EO 114, series 2020, which was signed in May by President Rodrigo Duterte that institutionalizes the BP2 program at the national level.

One of the functions of the Quirino BP2 Task Force is to “engage, consult and coordinate with the national government in the formulation of policies and implementation of the components of the BP2 program that will allow resource-sharing arrangements through, among others, co-financing mechanisms with development partners.”

The BP2 program of Quirino includes adoption of appropriate government intervention and policies to facilitate transition to the “new normal,” health system improvement to manage multidimensional health risks and enhancement of technological development,

The Quirino BP2 Task Force is headed by Cua. Its members include the congressional representative of Quirino, the vice governor, mayors, the provincial directors of national agencies and representatives from various sectors.

Cua said he welcomed the Duterte Administration’s “serious efforts to adopt a development framework that puts an emphasis on the regions outside Metro Manila in order to encourage our people to move to the provinces.”

“For decades, growth has been skewed toward the National Capital Region (NCR) and areas close to it. Metro Manila accounts for close to 40 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, but only has just over 12 percent of the Philippine population,” the former legislator added.

He further said “the per capita gross regional development product (GRDP) figures of Metro Manila compared to the country’s other regions further emphasize this disparity.”

Cua noted that data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that the per capita GRDP of NCR in 2018 was P253,893, almost 200 percent higher than the per capita GRDP national average of P86,370.

“The disparity is even higher in some regions, such as Cagayan Valley; NCR’s per capita GRDP is more than five times higher than Region 2. Clearly, those of us in the provinces must work with the national government to close this gap and institutionalizing the BP2 program at the national and provincial levels could be the first concrete step to achieving this.” he said.