Coronavirus highlights Manila’s overcrowding as Philippine government offers to pay residents to leave

‘Manila has reached its maximum,’ one expert says, as the government rolls out its ‘Back to the Province’ programme to reduce gridlock in the capital

The densely packed capital region is home to more than 13 million people, and accounts for about two-thirds of the country’s coronavirus cases

Reading Time:4 minutes

Philippine passengers wear masks as they ride a mini bus, known as a jeepney. Photo: EPA

Published: 2:30pm, 1 Jun 2020Updated: 2:30pm, 1 Jun 2020

The coronavirus pandemic is giving Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte a reason to reduce overcrowding in Manila, which in recent decades has swollen into one of the most heavily populated areas on Earth.

Duterte is offering cash and goods to induce city dwellers to move out of the greater capital region in an ambitious programme called “Back to the Province”, one of the most aggressive attempts in decades to lure Filipinos to the countryside.

With the pandemic exposing how swift population growth and urban migration have overstretched Manila’s transport, utility and health services, the government is now attempting to alter long-entrenched patterns of labour mobility.

The programme is designed to help people like Joel Gortina, a 38-year-old electrician, who wants to return to Cebu province after 15 years studying and working in Manila. With work drying up amid the outbreak, Gortina planned to leave Manila in mid-March, but got stuck when much of the country was placed on lockdown.

“I have no work. I have no money left. I was kicked out of my boarding house,” said Gortina, who has been sleeping mostly under roadway overpasses. “It’s a crisis here.”

More than 2 million jobs had been lost in the Philippines since April 24, about one-third of them in Manila, according to the Labour Department. The densely packed capital region is home to more than 13 million people, and accounts for about two-thirds of the country’s coronavirus cases.

With the economy staring at its deepest contraction in three decades and unemployment forecast to reach double digits, many are finding life in the capital less appealing.