North Luzon Monitor

North Luzon

We need more good mayors, governors

Gherald Edaño
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More than a good president, we need more good mayors, governors. As we rise closer to election dates of 2025 midterms, in fact, this coming October, the filing of certificates of candidacy will soon commence. We must, in introspect, deeply reflect to set our priorities straight – more than a better senate, we need better local governments.

Yours truly has been entangled in politics, either as strategist, consultant, advisor, or candidate myself since 2019. I have seen how immense, complicated, and yet so simple and basic the roles and functions of local government units (LGUs) are and how they deeply and impactfully affect ordinary lives – whether it’s a simple checkup in the health center or registration of your deceased beloved in the civil registrar or simply paying and securing a cedula. LGUs are closer to people’s immediate concerns.

When disasters and calamities happen, Senators or even the President is the last person you would expect in the area. But councilors, your municipal engineer, or your mayor are the closest thing to heaven for the poor affected families to kneel for aid and assistance to rebuild their lives. They can suspend the classes immediately, reroute traffic, clear roads from debris, setup temporary shelters, and order recovery and rescue efforts for missing people, not the senator or even the president.

When crimes happen, it’s the mayor who can pressure the local police to do their job and investigate such and dispense justice for victims.

When an oil spill happened near Mindoro last year, it’s the governor and the mayors who had to act immediately and urgently to contain the spill from destroying more ecosystems in the area. The president, senators, and cabinet secretary can only do so much in evaluating our policies and redirect more resources on this issue.

When a baby drowned because boaters in Burnham Lake has no vest, it’s the local government who has decided that a life vest could prevent any repeat of similar incident.

When traffic happens in metro manila, you cannot solely blame the president but also the metropolitan mayors whose policies do not align. May the president intervene and make sense of it himself? That should be the last thing to expect, but first, common sense and communication among these mayors, right? Especially with this e-bike thing.

Even with the president and his economic ministers bringing in investors from foreign nations, it’s always the governor or the mayor who gets final say and sign over the permits and licenses for these businesses to operate in their localities.

During the pandemic, more than the indifference in the national task force, mayors and governors stand between how our pandemic policies could become such a burden or a blessing for their people. A good mayor has turned pandemic policies a blessing for people who needed more aid, medical assistance, and faster access to immunization, just as much as how a bad mayor could kill someone with their unsmart travelling requirements and lack of ambulance or medical resources to attend to immediate needs of their people.

Conversely, an ignorant mayor who has no contingency on disasters and calamities could kill many people. How an absent mayor could kill children and mothers for not having a responsive and adequately equipped RHUs or could cause family and generational disputes over missing land and property records in the Assessor’s office because there is simply no budget to digitalize the LGU.

A bad mayor could also endanger communities when he or she has no control over their police nor their private armed groups who goes above the law in pursuit of their personal interests and obsession of violence.

A corrupt mayor could also cut jobs when instead of prioritizing farmers, would steal public funds and disallow farmers’ produce to be sold in the market and favor his own farms and friends to monopolize the market.

A traffic is just as bad as its mayor who has no regard for data-driven policies or urban planning nor even a sympathy for trees and sidewalks.

No business could survive with a corrupt mayor who keeps asking more and more “S.O.P” and become insatiable with money over public contracts.

A mayor’s signature, more than a scribble on paper, could either save lives by affirming better health policies or higher funds for public service, or expire lives with letters easily bended in favor of personal interests.

This is just an overview, and I am pretty sure, many readers could also share more stories of how their lives either became blessed or more cursed by their mayors and local governments. But the bottom line is this – whether mayor or governor – our local executives including legislators, are our own people. We knew them by name and by heart. We even know their exact addresses. More than the laws our senators and congressmen have wrote nor the fiats our president have rewritten as executive orders, our local officials are closer to our concerns. They understand our stories better. They know the streets we are crossing. They have heard of the schools we went. They might have met the names we marites. They might have tried the same barbecue we bought from the waiting shed they built. Experienced the rains that poured on our roof.

I can attest to you, all local governments, had enough and resources to make our lives better, just as it can make it worse.

So this is a stern reminder for the upcoming 2025 elections – more than we want a better leaders in Diokno Boulevard, we need better and more effective leaders in our munisipios.

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