The LaSallian exclusive: Manila City Mayor Alfredo Lim and Former President Joseph Estrada

If the electorate chooses me to be their next leader, my first priority would be to rationalize the city’s current financial state.  This translates to tracing the manner in which its funds and other resources have been misspent or else utilized for items other than those for which they were specifically earmarked, and then implementing a program of utilization that is focused and transparent.  An important guide in this pursuit will be the most recent report issued by the Commission on Audit (COA) which lists – in great detail – its findings and recommendations on how Manila’s financial standing can be rehabilitated. (see PDI, Aug. 15, 2012, p. A25)

Rationalization will also be a backbone of the social programs I intend to implement in Manila.  For example, it is ironic that the city has district hospitals, but that each one lacks even the most basic equipment and supplies to address the health needs of residents.  In sum these edifices are little more than white elephants – structures that are hollow and serve no real purpose.  Worse, the funds used to build them could have been put to better use by purchasing modern equipment and supplies for existing health facilities in the city.

Also, the population profile and density of Manila is now very different from what it was fifty years ago. At present, the city has six congressional districts, 897 barangays and 38 council seats. As a result, we are challenged to upgrade infrastructure, to provide more basic services and to create livelihood opportunities for Manila’s growing population.

In my fifty years of uninterrupted public service, we have made it a point to put in place policies, systems, and procedures that will continue to create favorable conditions for Manila. For example, we instructed the Building Official to follow the National Building Code instead of the local one, which is restrictive. This has attracted local and foreign investments in real estate development.

We have created “one stop shops” and satellite offices for business permits and tax collection to eliminate red tape. This has encouraged existing businesses to remain in Manila, and has attracted new businesses like call centers and business outsourcing, and tourism to the city.  Modesty aside, we have also set high standards for good and transparent governance, diminishing red tape, instilling discipline among officials and constituents alike, demanding integrity, respect for law and order, and that forgotten virtue of malasakit in public service.

In my plan to provide more job opportunities to the people of Manila, I aim to promote tourism based on Manila’s cultural heritage to optimize its public markets and trade centers, to support the schools and universities – both public and private, to nurture the senior citizens, to create clean and green areas and install a disaster preparedness program, and of course, stop lawlessness to maintain peace and order at all times.  Most especially, I plan to support and provide better opportunities for the students in Manila’s schools and universities.  The youth of Manila will determine the city’s future.  They must realize that and be given the right support systems to help them make a commitment for Manila.

Now, with regard to education, Manila pioneered the free college education program when the late Mayor Villegas founded the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila in 1963. But that is only for honor students who graduated from public schools in Manila. We gave the same opportunity to regular students by establishing the City College (now Universidad de Manila). Manila residents’ taxes have also paid for additional school buildings for existing public schools. Manila is one of the few highly urbanized cities in the Philippines where there is no shortage of classrooms. Manila is a compassionate city, a welfare city; it is also a university city whose graduates have contributed to national socioeconomic development.

I was born in Tondo, I spent the first nine years of my life in the Hospicio de San Jose, an orphanage on the Pasig River; we were all orphans there. I grew up in Manila; I played in its streets; I worked in its markets like Divisoria, carrying heavy bundles for shoppers; and I was an ambulant vendor, peddling on busy streets the foodstuff made by my grandma.  I was a working student, a product of public schools in Manila. I fell in love in Manila and raised my family here.  Manila is close to my heart; I know it like the palm of my hand!

Manila is special because it gave me an opportunity to become a public servant. I started as a policeman, patrolling streets on foot, directing traffic, upholding the rule of law for all Manilans, so they could live in peace and order, Manila is a challenge, a perpetual, but welcome challenge.

But, I want education to be my most important legacy because a democratic system like ours must be based on educated citizens who understand the electoral process and who use their right to vote for the ultimate benefit of this country. Education is the cutting edge and I speak from experience. An educated person will understand the need for upholding the rule of law.

Likewise if I succeed in fostering a greater sense of community in the hearts of the people of Manila – the willingness to help their fellowmen and their city as a whole so that everyone can move forward – then I would have accomplished what I set out to do.  I would have shown my family and the people of Manila that Erap is a son who honors the service of his father, Emilio – a public servant of the City of Manila for 30 years –  and that the city occupies a very special place in his heart.