Mayor Mike Rama's strategic leadership thrusts

While our country is being besieged by a confluence of macro factors, including turbulence in geopolitics, the still-unresolved worldwide pandemic, recurrent natural calamities and disasters, and the impending food crisis, as well as pressure from domestic problems confronting our economy, the league of cities is meeting tomorrow and the next two days in Cebu City to formulate a common strategy on how to glide over the surging waves of socio-economic and political pressures and come out victorious.

Hosted by the League of Cities' National President, Cebu City Mayor Mike Rama, I was asked to present a proposed package of proposals on how to lead human capital in the city governments and how to serve the people with excellence. I have to fly fast to Cebu and return to Italy after my brief engagement to resume my academic mission in Europe. My proposed core of excellence is in its four Es: Effectiveness, Efficiency, Ethics, and Empowerment. Because of the formidable challenges, mayors must be effective in the sense that all their actions, plans, and decisions should achieve their predetermined goals. Efficiency demands that cities should optimize the use and allocation of limited resources including funds and time. Ethics requires uncompromising adherence to law and regulations. Empowerment calls for continuing learning and development of people, both the service providers and the constituencies.

Based on research and ground coordination with village leaders and grassroots communities, my priorities for city mayors to consider are as follows; basic needs including food, water and shelter for the people. Second is employment and livelihood. Third is environment, sanitation. Fourth is disaster preparedness. Fifth is infrastructures, transport, and traffic. Sixth is peace, security and justice. Seventh is public healthcare, education, and skills development. Eighth is culture, arts, history, and tourism. Ninth is spiritual, ethical, and moral development. And tenth is city government human capital development. The city government should also master the art and science of leading people and managing work and functions. The mayors should stress fiscal discipline in the use of public funds and should encourage tourists and investors to bring their business to the cities.

The city mayors today are overwhelmed by too many demands from increasingly assertive and discriminating constituencies. City populations are rising while the economies are shrinking. Despite the Mandanas ruling, the city coffers are not filled to the brim. There are rising and competing demands. Thus the chief executive and his team should establish very clear criteria and priorities. The recurrent typhoons and flooding of main thoroughfares, the fires that destroyed houses and business establishments, and the continuing need to enforce protocols to prevent the further spread of various variants of COVID-19. There are also unrelenting challenges posed by crime and drug-related offenses that detract our local authorities from their focus on the critical problems.

Thus mayors and their teams are called upon to respond with agility and speed but with humane and conscientious approaches. The actions and decisions in the city government should always be in accordance with law, respectful of culture and traditions and compliant with government regulations.

There should always be a balance between people and government. The city employees should be competent, with strong character, conscientious, focused on their jobs, and committed to make the city succeed in its continuing efforts to win over all challenges. Mayor Mike is such a visionary, a dynamic, and passionate leader. He is rising today not only as a leader of the city but of all the cities in the Philippines. That is why I am helping him because he is one of the handful Cebuano leaders who have the potential for national leadership.

Cebu does not have a senator or an associate justice in the Supreme Court. We do not have a general commanding the army, navy, or air force. We have no famous Cebuano ambassador in active diplomatic service. We need to develop leaders like Mike Rama who is not corrupt, not lazy, not anti-poor, and is neither extreme left nor extreme right. Mike Rama is a developmental mayor, a conciliatory politician, and a very forgiving leader. He is not arrogant but always ready to listen. There are few leaders in Cebu today who can approximate the character, caliber, and competence of Mayor Mike. Because he called while I was in Barcelona, I had to come home to Cebu, expenses paid by my clients in Europe, just to help such a worthy leader, the mayor now, soon to be greater later.