Davao-style leadership

Man at the Market

Jesse E.L. Bacon II

09/08/2008

Our recent trip to Davao gave us valuable insights on how political leadership, if properly directed and exercised with integrity, can serve the interest of the very constituency it is supposed to serve.

Any visitor to the city immediately feels secure the moment he steps out of the spanking airport terminal. You’ll never meet street muggers disguised as taxi drivers when you take a cab outside the terminal. All that you’ll find are courteous drivers who are ever willing to convey you to your destination. Additionally, you’ll never find a taxi driver who’ll refuse passengers, bully passenger to agree to a pre-agreed fare, and who’ll bring you somewhere else before bringing you to where you are headed.

Truly, the atmosphere upon setting foot in Davao, is one that is very conducive to visitors thus gives them the feeling of being welcomed into its vast territory that at one time made it the biggest city in the world in terms of land area. And anywhere you go in Davao, you’ll never lose that feeling of being secured for practically every nook and cranny of the city is so safe.

You don’t find in Davao senseless killings perpetrated by equally senseless members of street gangs claiming to be members of fraternities like what is happening in Cebu City, which is an abomination to the noble intentions of true fraternities. Snatching is even extinct in Davao’s major streets. Even the presence of holdup men in Davao had become a thing of the past.

The city is truly peaceful and the people there attribute this to the leadership of Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. City residents we had the chance of talking with readily tell us that if not for the mayor, Davao might not have achieved this feat. They said it is Duterte’s no nonsense campaign against all forms of criminality by addressing the economic concerns of his constituents such as jobs or other opportunities by which they can earn decent incomes.

Duterte also initiated programs that enabled his constituents to become more competitive through those Sunday classes for those who can’t attend the regular classes for one reason or another such as the city’s household helps but who’d like to graduate from the elementary grades or high school or even college. We could not think of any other city that has this kind of program except Davao.

It is very clear that Duterte recognizes the need to educationally equip his constituents to ensure their productivity in the future, hence, his administration’s move at giving premium to education through those Sunday classes. Apparently, he is a strong believer also of the dictum that economic prosperity can only be had in an atmosphere of real peace. And peace is what Davao is currently enjoying that in large measure due to their hardworking mayor who knows where to place his administration’s energies on.

* * *

Listening to the presidential and vice presidential candidates of the Democratic as well as the vice presidential candidate of the its rival, the Republican Party, all that the Filipino could wish for is for this country to have such top caliber politicians gun for the two highest positions in the land. Unfortunately, the more ambitious ones here are the likes of Bayani Fernando who could not even do things right as head of the MMDA.

How Fernando envisions doing the job of the president when he could not even do the job as head of the MMDA really boggles the mind. But Fernando whose idea of easing the traffic in Metro Manila is simply to widen the streets where possible; construct U-turn slots, a number of which are not being used; construct pedestrian overpasses, most of which were put up even without a sensible study of the volume of pedestrian traffic where they were constructed.

Fernando is the guy who is a devotee of the paradox that to economically empower the poor such as the sidewalk vendors is to deprive them of their only decent source of income. Fernando is likely of the view that stealing, thievery, robbery and hold-ups are better sources of income for these poor countrymen of ours than letting them decently earn their living as sidewalk vendors. And this is the same Fernando who’d rather see the destitute in Metro Manila live in carts rather than in their shanties by having these shanties demolished without offering any alternative to them.

And this is the same Fernando who has plastered practically the whole country with his expensive tarpaulin posters that in all likelihood were produced using public funds or through the influence of his office. What kind of man is this?

(jelbacon@yahoo.com for reactions)

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