Local government units (LGUs) should be given at least three days to prepare for the arrival of residents from Metro Manila under the Balik Probinsya (“Return to the Province”) program, Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año said today in a virtual press briefing.
This comes after Ormoc City Mayor Richard Gomez, a former actor, issued a scathing statement directed at several government agencies yesterday where he alleged that he was told to welcome returning residents who were “untested” for COVID-19. Gomez also said that he was just “texted” by the concerned officials about the arrival of the residents, who were on board three planes, in neighboring Tacloban City.
“We have kept our city Covid-free for more than 70 days bec[ause] of strict border controls and implementation of health protocols. Then here comes a TEXT from the National government agencies telling us that there are repatriates coming in our city and telling us to accept them?! What happened to all the protocols that we’ve been working on?” Gomez angrily asked in his Facebook post.
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The arrivals were supposedly recipients of the Balik Probinsya program, a brainchild of pro-government Senator Christopher “Bong” Go where Filipinos are given the opportunity to go home to their provinces in order to decongest Metro Manila and prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Año said he has already spoken to Gomez about the issue, and he said government agencies should give LGUs at least three days to prepare for the arrival of domestic repatriates.
“This was so sudden and they [the government of Ormoc] were not informed in advance…What I want is for [agencies] to inform them at least three days in advance before [the residents] arrive. Because they need to prepare vehicles to pick them up and they also need to prepare isolation facilities [for quarantines]. This is just an isolated incident in Leyte; they were surprised over the ones coming through Balik Probinsya,” the interior chief said in English and Filipino.
Secretary Año confirmed that those coming through Balik Probinsya have not been tested for the coronavirus because they have already gone through months of quarantine in Metro Manila.
“They didn’t go through [the coronavirus] testing because we assume that they have gone through quarantines for the last two months that we were on lockdown. What has to be done is when they arrive there [in the province] they are given diagnostic screenings and they’ll undergo another quarantine,” Año explained.
Former University of the Philippines Chancellor Michael Tan is one of the prominent critics of Balik Probinsya, which he described as a “recycled” idea. In a forum hosted a few weeks ago, Tan said, “It’s another term for throwing the poor to the rural areas. That will not be the solution.”
“We really have to do something about our problem of urban housing. I would like to urge Senator Bong Go to research first and ask,” the academic added.
“What we need to do is to ask is, ‘Why did this happen?’ It’s poverty. Let’s deal with the problem of housing,” Tan said.
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