"The rest of the country, especially those from a jaded, war-weary generation like mine, can only wish them the best."
"The rest of the country, especially those from a jaded, war-weary generation like mine, can only wish them the best."
A lot of online chatter has lately focused on Manila’s new mayor, the good-looking former movie star Isko Moreno (Domagoso), who took over last July 1 from former action star turned senior statesman Joseph “Erap” Estrada.
The two may belong to the same thespian industry, an occupation that in the Middle Ages was filled out by wandering minstrels and court jesters, people who ranked so low in the pecking order that they had to share sleeping space on the floor with the king’s dogs. But between the disrespected medieval entertainers and today’s adulated celebrities—as between Erap and Isko, in fact—the difference is like, well, night and day.
In just a week after taking office, Mayor Moreno has moved swiftly to close down sidewalk betting parlors; demolished even barangay halls that were illegally built; opened up government business to online transparency; and—most tellingly—cleared the busy streets of Divisoria and Quiapo of itinerant sidewalk vendors literally overnight.
The urban blight that most Manila residents had already become resigned to as permanent is now being dispatched with unsettling speed. And to allay apprehensions that this may just be the usual ningas-kogon, the mayor has advised people that if the vendors return, it can only mean that he ended up being bribed.
But the mayor’s possible insincerity over the long term isn’t what troubles me. On the contrary; the blight he’s cleaning up also means the loss of billions of pesos especially by syndicates and corrupt officials, as we learned after he disclosed having received a bribe offer of P5 million a DAY just to stay away from the sidewalk vendors. And that’s just one of the longstanding rackets going on in Manila.
In this country where a man can be ordered killed for just P5,000 (presumably the mayor’s head would fetch a much higher price), we can only hope that his bodyguards are many and well-armed. But more important for the long-term security of the mayor, as well as the radical reforms he’s so impatient to carry out, is the collective support of all Manila residents who still care about their city and who still believe it’s possible that—as Duterte likes to put it—change is coming.
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Mayor Isko is only the most visible of several young politicians who’ve taken over key mayorships in Metro Manila—part of an intergenerational transfer of power in local government last May that has also swept other provincial and municipal positions of leadership throughout the country.
In Quezon City, the fetching Joy Belmonte has candidly owned up to a looming cash deficit in the city’s finances that will most likely see her scrambling for more revenues as her term starts. In Pasig, movie industry scion Vico Sotto unilaterally suspended color-coding in his city—which unfortunately may weaken overall traffic management in the metro area—and showed his activist colors early on by declaring himself anti-Marcos.
These new mayors may prefer to tread more cautiously than Moreno is doing, hewing instead to tried-and-tested mechanisms of transition teams, coalition-building, and consensus agendas. But they all have political savvy, having served previously as vice-mayors or top-rated councilors, with many of them as well belonging to mini-dynasties like the Belmontes in QC or the Zamoras in San Juan.
The rest of the country, especially those from a jaded, war-weary generation like mine, can only wish them the best. And if a new federal system allows these promising young local executives to rise all the way to the top in their new regions, we will be breeding a new generation of presidentiable timber—like former governors Reagan, Carter, Bush or Clinton in the US—who (unlike all those preening media creatures in the Senate) actually know how to get things done.
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Foreign Affairs Secretary “Teddyboy” Locsin is one of a handful of writers from whom this columnist can actually pick up new words. From Locsin’s speech at the US Embassy during Phil-Am Friendship Day last July 4th, I learned “celerity” (no, it’s not a green vegetable) and “climacteric” (no, it’s neither a literary nor sexual allusion).
One of his lines that I found quite striking: America’s great power and commitment to freedom for herself and for the rest of the world “allows her allies the freedom to maneuver with other nations; to make close friends of an untried disposition; to strike postures of friendliness dangerously bordering on blind trust; and of belligerence but without anxiety because someone has their backs.”
That’s a pretty astute summing-up of the PH-US-China triangulation. Some might quibble over the celerity of the American commitment, or even claim that America may be descending from climacteric into senescence. But after over a century of being so close to each other from half the world away, this senior/junior partnership has got to define what “natural allies” means at least in this region.
I’m almost reminded of the typical philandering Filipino husband who’s emboldened to play the field and fool around only because he’s absolutely, one hundred percent sure that his infinitely patient Filipina wife will still be waiting to take him back. In our case, it’s the lady guarding the New York harbor, her lamp of liberty forever held high, who lights it all up for us so we never lose our way.
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Today’s readings teach us the importance of perseverance in obedience and how this is ultimately requited by God’s compassionate support.
In the Old Testament (Gn 32: 23-33), we find Jacob filled with fear over possible violence from his brother Esau. He ends up wrestling all night with an angel to earn God’s blessing, thereby also earning for himself the new name Israel, “the one who contends with divine beings.”
In Psalm 15, David also prays to be rescued from his persecutors: “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings from the violence of the wicked”. And the compassion of God’s response to human weakness is narrated in the Gospel (Mt 9: 32-38), as Jesus goes about His ministry of teaching and healing, His heart filled with pity for the crowds who “were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.”
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