The fire of service

Over 1,200 people packed the hall of the SMX Convention Center last week when the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry hosted a reception to celebrate the country’s 128th Independence Day and the 25th Filipino-Chinese Friendship Day.

Two very, very long presidential tables fronted the stage; as is the usual practice of the FFCCCII, all its past presidents – now referred to as honorary presidents, and there are many of them – are acknowledged, along with its current officers. Distinguished guests too, including the Chinese ambassador, since it was the two peoples’ friendship that was being celebrated. A surprise guest who tried to keep her presence low-key – except the excited emcee introduced her – was First Lady Liza Marcos.

My focus though was on the third part of the celebration – the Exemplar City Mayor Award, a project of the FFCCCII and the Angelo King Foundation. A unique feature of this award is that it is limited to third-term mayors, which makes sense because being twice reelected speaks – I hope – to the constituents’ approval. It also allows for the evaluation of achievements rather than plans – what the mayor has actually done in the past six-plus years rather than what he/she intends to do or says he/she will do.

The award covers city mayors nationwide, nominated by the local chamber of commerce. I heard there were five finalists – three from the NCR and two from the provinces.

Evaluation is based on four criteria: integrity and anti-graft governance, fiscal and financial governance, business-friendliness and competitiveness and human development. The winner received a unique trophy – which, I also heard, was done by a Mindanaoan artist – and a barrio schoolhouse, the FFCCCII’s signature project.

*      *      *

I am thrilled to bits that the first Exemplar City Mayor Award was given to Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte. I will admit straightaway to being biased; I have known Joy since she a little girl we called TaniJoy (her full name is Ma. Josefina Tanya). But beyond bias, it is unarguable that Joy fully deserves the award. She is mayor of the largest city in Metro Manila, with land area of over 171 square kilometers divided into six districts with 142 barangays and a population of over 3.3 million. Not just large but diverse: Quezon City has residential areas, from posh subdivisions to middle class neighborhoods to informal settler communities; businesses big and small, from factories to malls to bistros; a cluster of government offices, public and private hospitals and schools, including top universities.

Managing all of that is, to put it mildly, no easy task. Joy has embraced digitalization, not just to streamline processes but to eliminate red tape and corruption. Paying real estate taxes used to be a nearly whole day ordeal at city hall; now my niece gets it done in minutes online, without having to wait in line or deal with fixers. The QC e-Services platform houses 245 services offered by various departments and offices. This efficiency has paid off not just in user-friendliness, but in monetary terms: the city’s budget has doubled in six years, without having to raise taxes or impose new ones. More than half of the budget goes to education, health and other services directly benefiting the residents.

While she may be seen to be following in the footsteps of her father – former QC mayor and Speaker Sonny Belmonte – in government service, Joy acknowledges her late mother, STAR founding chair, the inimitable Betty Go Belmonte, to have put the “fire of service” in her heart – “to work hard, give back and build something that lasts beyond generations.”

Joy has always had a heart for the people and a “feel” for what they want. As a Jesuit volunteer in Bukidnon (in a town that is now referred to as a GIDA – geographically isolated and disadvantaged area) during her college days, she asked her mother to bring, aside from basic necessities for the community like meds and toiletries, showbiz magazines – which turned out to be the hands-down favorite among the residents, young and old. On the campaign trail with her father, Joy would sometimes break off from the group and later be found in someone’s sala or kitchen, chatting away with the family and sharing a snack.

Unlike today’s notorious nepo babies, position and privilege didn’t spoil her. I don’t know if she’d appreciate my sharing this, but she used to shop at the ukay-ukay, and from her I learned how to disinfect these used clothes – by soaking them in very hot water. You won’t hear or see her coming with wang-wang and bodyguards; petite and without bling, you could easily miss her in a crowd (except for all the people wanting selfies). But to her QCitizens, Joy is 10 feet tall, a towering figure of public service.

The success of Quezon City is “proof that a different kind of governance is possible – governance that puts people at the center.” Local officials make government real to the people. For most of the country’s 120 million people, the national government – executive, legislature and judiciary – might as well be in another planet. What the folks in Malacañang or the Senate or the Supreme Court do seem to have very little direct, day-to-day relevance in the lives of ordinary folks – you and me, the sari-sari store owner, the fisherman, the school teacher – malayo sa bituka, as they say, even though the policies, laws and decisions they make in Imperial Manila eventually affect every citizen’s life, in ways big and small.

With decentralization granted by RA 7160, the Local Government Code, the mayor has the primary responsibility to see to it that basic services – education, health care, peace and order – are within reach of the residents; especially now that officials of the national government have shown themselves to be crooks, con men and utter dismal failures, it is the local officials who must restore the people’s trust in government. Mayors like Joy – and I believe/hope there are others like her all over the country – show the people that government is there for them and is working to make life better for them.