Local government officials are adapting the “Balik-Probinsiya” Program in a bid to decongest evacuation centers and give storm flood victims a chance to start a new life back in their provinces.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) had re-launched its financial or material assistance to support individuals who wanted to return to their home province instead of remaining in evacuation centers in Metro Manila.

In Pasig City, Mayor Robert “Bobby” Eusebio had given evacuees at the ULTRA along Meralco Avenue a two-week deadline—up to October 19—to either return home or accept the similar “Balik Probinsya” program that they have adapted with the Social Welfare department.

Eusebio admitted that the city could no longer shoulder the costs keeping those people in ULTRA, where the number of evacuees was still increasing.

Some 120 families have already applied for the “Balik Probinsya” program of the Pasig.
In Quezon City, meanwhile, Councilor Ariel Inton asked Mayor Feliciano “Sonny” Belomonte to immediately earmark P500 million to initiate their own “Balik Probinsya” program.

“We would help them to return to their provinces with a proper living condition instead of coming back to their flooded squatter communities here in the city that would again endanger their lives,” Inton said.
In San Juan City, Mayor JV Ejercito advised evacuees to likewise apply for of the program to decongest evacuation centers.

Francis Earl A. Cueto