Proactive

The American ambassador called Manila Mayor Isko Moreno a “rock star.”

There is reason why the US embassy is so happy with the new mayor. They had arranged for Isko to take a fellowship at Harvard University’s highly respected School of Government. They chose correctly.

There are many reasons, too, why we should be happy. Isko is like a blast of fresh air for a demoralized and squalid city.

From Day One, the new Manila mayor burst out with programs to clear the city streets of illegal vendors, wash down a monument desecrated by human excrement and clear the waterways choked by illegal settlements.

The energy and passion Isko brings to the job contrasts sharply with the laid back governing styles of his immediate predecessors. For too many years, old men who rarely ventured out of their offices and were happy with politics as usual presided over the capital city.

 In a matter of days, the relentless new mayor of Manila impressed everyone. So impressed was Sen. Ralph Recto that he slipped into a non sequitur about not needing Charter change with leaders like Moreno. Others were openly speculating about Isko running for president in 2022.

Isko has just been in office less than two weeks and he is garnering all these positive reviews.

There are other fresh faces elected local executives in the last poll. Nearly all of them are turning in impressive performances so early in their terms.

There is Francis Zamora of San Juan and Vico Sotto of Pasig. Both threw out long-standing dynasts in their respective cities and both have brought youthful vigor to their jobs.

There is Benjie Magalong, one of the most professional police officers to serve the PNP. Elected mayor of Baguio City, he has brought new hope to the residents of yet another city so badly governed for too long.

Isko stands out because he takes over a city reduced to such squalidness by bad governance. The streets were dark and muddy, there was garbage everywhere, syndicates who collected from every illegal activity and pushed bribes upwards were in control.

Isko is the most visible, and perhaps the most charismatic, of a new generation of local executives elected in the Age of Duterte who have collectively set new standards for leadership. Together, these unrelenting fresh leaders display a can-do attitude, a no-nonsense approach to problems and a staunch refusal to be coopted into the old, corrupt way of doing things.

If this new breed of local leaders continues to impress, maintain their energetic approach and actually score against the problems besetting our communities, they will become the reference point for voters choosing national leaders.

In the future, the path to the presidency may no longer be the legislative branch where politicians constantly angle to score name-recall points. Successful mayors could be the more reliable recruiting ground for national leaders.

Rodrigo Duterte, after all, rose to the presidency from years of impressive service as a city mayor.

Permanent

Holcim Philippines recently inaugurated a multi-billion peso cement plant that dramatically increases domestic production capacity. The huge investment was made despite threats to the profitability and even sustainability of local cement manufacturers posed by unbridled importation of the commodity.

Over the past few years, because of a momentary alignment in pricing, a bunch of cement importers have flooded the market with products of uncertain quality. In the first half of 2019, cement imports jumped 64% to 1.74 million metric tons. They come mainly from plants in Vietnam. Many of these plants have been ordered closed because they employ obsolete technologies.

Because they have neither plant nor quality control expertise, these importers are not accountable to consumers. Consumers cannot run to some nondescript plant in Vietnam to complain in the event the commodity they bought was found substandard.

The domestic cement industry, for its part, directly employs 42,000 Filipino workers. Through the value chain, they create 125,000 indirect jobs.

Last year, buoyed by the construction boom, local cement manufactures amounted to P155 billion. That is fully one percent of the country’s GDP.

Furthermore, local cement manufacturers contributed about P24 billion in taxes. The contribution is even larger if we take into account the industry’s value chain.

Should the cement industry disappear overnight, this will create a large hole in employment and government revenues. The Cement Manufacturers Association of the Philippines has petitioned to make the temporary safeguard tariff permanent. The Association’s executive director Cirilo Pestano II warned the unabated importation “will lead to serious repercussions that will be detrimental to the Philippine economy.”

The DTI agrees with the position of the cement manufacturers. The agency observes that the domestic cement industry’s earnings have fallen sharply as imports rose exponentially. In 2013, the country imported only 3,588 tons of cement. By the end of 2018, annual importation soared to nearly five million tons.

The surge in importation brought enormous profits to the traders taking advantage of a temporary price misalignment for the product. But if we wait for that misalignment to correct, the domestic cement industry might be dead. In which case, our economy will be most vulnerable to the vagaries of international commerce.

In the first half of this year, imports continued to flood the domestic market even if a temporary safeguard duty of P8.40 was imposed. Local manufacturers are petitioning that the safeguard measure be increased and made permanent. Doing so will make the local cement industry viable.

A decision on this petition should be forthcoming. Local producers hope it will be good for the national economy over the long term.