Bayani Fernando Update 4/18/2010

He wants to be the ‘bastonero’

IF (OR WHEN?) HE WINS THE VICE PRESIDENcy, says Bayani Fernando, he will not ask the new president for any Cabinet portfolio, at least not any post with a formal name or function. Instead, he wishes to be appointed “the President’s bastonero (whip),” someone who will go around making sure department heads are meeting their targets, government employees are not slacking off, or thieves in barong or blazers are not raiding the government coffers.
In short, Bayani Fernando wishes to become the most unpopular man in the next administration.
When our group of media women asked him if there was anything he ever regretted in the course of his campaign, Fernando said it was “listening to my advisers.” And what piece of advice did he regret most? “That I smile constantly.”
When we asked who gave him such advice, he pointed to his wife, outgoing Marikina Mayor Marides Fernando, who simply smiles back.

“I’ve had my old posters printed and will be hanging them up soon,” he tells us, referring to the posters that came out while he was still chair of the Metro Manila Development Authority, showing him sternly looking down from the posts of overhead rails, admonishing motorists and pedestrians. “My new slogan is,” he declared, “Hindi ako nagbibiro. Titino tayo. (I’m not kidding. We’ll shape up.)”
It’s clear Fernando is not just running to snag the No. 2 post of the land (with presidential candidate Sen. Richard Gordon of the Bagumbayan Party). On his agenda are not just the usual platitudes about good governance, fighting corruption or eradicating poverty. Instead, he wants to create a new Filipino society, one motivated by different values, especially a new work ethic and a commitment to excellence.

IF critics say Fernando wishes to bite off more than he can chew, he can always point to the transformation wrought in Marikina where he served as mayor for three terms and then was succeeded by Marides.
In the 18 years of “Fernando rule,” Marikina, once a small riverside city ruled by the single industry of shoe-making, has grown into a city with a diversified line-up of industries, clean streets even along the market, brightly lit parks and promenades, and an impressive network of social support systems.
But beyond the new infrastructure, the cleanliness, and the renovation of what used to be eyesores, including the once-polluted Marikina River, the transformation of Marikina is most impressive for what experts have dubbed the “social engineering and cultural change” led by the local government leaders.
In a book on the many governance innovations established in the city, Fernando (“BF” to his constituents) is quoted as saying that he “would like to be remembered as a builder of character and not just a builder of infrastructure.” And in the city, he began where it mattered most: in the mayor’s own milieu of City Hall. The bureaucracy was motivated (by carrot and stick) to respond quickly and efficiently to the citizens’ demands, and to deliver basic services as efficiently and completely as possible.
During a visit to Marikina City Hall a few years ago, Mayor Marides pointed to the various glass-walled offices. When asked about the glass walls, she quipped: “For more transparency!”
With office transactions open to public view, with no room for secret hanky-panky, city hall workers couldn’t but do their jobs in the best and fastest way possible.
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BF had a chance to expand the vision he and Marides first made palpable in Marikina when he was appointed chair of the MMDA.
In this post he has been less than a total success, given that Metro Manila’s 13 cities are much larger and more complex than Marikina. But given the many obstacles he faced, including the refusal of some mayors to cooperate or even heed MMDA regulations, BF can be said to have made quite an impact still.
He is quite proud that the numbers—including the savings accrued in fuel and time saved—have borne out the wisdom of his policy of replacing intersections with U-turns, cutting down the time vehicles used to spend idling before traffic lights.
He was most controversial for his policy of “disciplining” sidewalk vendors and informal settlements (which he persists in calling squatter colonies). BF went on walking tours with a demolition team, driving away vendors on sidewalks and even destroying small stalls that intruded into public property.
There was much TV footage of outraged vendors, haranguing authorities for destroying their property, including their wares. BF would later explain that they destroyed the vegetables and fruits on sale because they didn’t want it said that the MMDA was profiting from the produce they confiscated.
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BUT even now, while he is courting the nationwide vote, Fernando refuses to pander to populist sentiment. In fact, he does quite the opposite.
If the Philippines is poor, he declares, it is because we Filipinos wanted it that way. “We have become so poor because we designed a society for the poor,” he says. “Let’s stop designing the country for the poor, let’s work instead to reach the optimum level, pull up the poor and make them work for their sustenance, or else all of us will end up suffering.”
Productivity, he says, is the top problem confronting the country and its people.
In his campaign, BF presents himself as the “engineer of change,” wearing a yellow hard hat which he says is the “symbol of construction workers,” although he has other hats in different colors.
If he does make it as vice president, we can expect BF to wear many hats as well: engineer of social change, advisor to the president, disciplinarian and national scold.
By Rina Jimenez-David
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:45:00 04/13/2010
Taken from: http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20100413-264098/He-wants-to-be-the-bastonero