Good for Congress, best for city hall

A Bloomberg as mayor of New York City underscores a global trend in urban politics – corporate governance.
A dynast as mayor wherever emphasizes a downtrend, a return to the fiefdom of a colonial past. Present and past. Progress and retrogression. North and South. The developed and the Third World. Diametrically opposed options obtaining in Philippine politics, with the downside ever prevailing, given the pre-eminence of patronage in the choice of candidates.
I was swamped by these torrents of thought listening to Reghis Romero II confirming his intention to run in the 2007 elections. He readily makes the best choice in any electoral contest. Even if only for his name – minus the h – translating to the Latin “of the king.” But for his patrician bearing though, there is no haughty aristocracy in Romero. He makes the consummate corporate man.
Over a sumptuous lunch with the Society of Pampanga Columnists and other mediamen at Fortune Restaurant-Balibago, Thursday last week, Romero fielded all questions running the gamut of politics, economics and social issues with the confidence of a double-Ph.D professor lecturing a bunch of undergrads.
Comparisons are always odious, so it is said. But Ed Aguilar of this paper too could not help but crack: “Tune ping pibarilan ing agwat nang Reghis kareng kikinakinaking a manungkulan.”
Romero has etched his name in stone – in both literal and figurative sense – being the chairman of the board of the hugely successful eponymous R-II Builders Group of Companies.
To the urban poor of Manila’s Tondo, Romero is the “miracle man” for having transformed the world-(in)famous Smokey Mountain from the quintessence of urban blight to a model of human habitat.
The miracle did not end there. No, Romero did not do a Moses-parting-the-Red-Sea with nothing more than his deep faith in Yahweh and his staff. With modern technology learned from the water-logged Dutch and Danes, Romero reclaimed land from the depths of Manila Bay, and there – ala Botticelli’s Venus rising from the sea – rose the Manila Harbour Centre, the country’s premier seaport complex that can rival the best Asia can offer.
Romero’s latest venture is Philippine Ecology Systems Inc., a response to the ever-growing solid waste problem of ever-growing cities, with an initial sanitary landfill project in the Malabon-Navotas area.
With that, Romero has improved on the philosophy of erection – “In order to build, you have to destroy” – by adding a clean-up component to it, an environmental requisite that should go a long way in helping heal Mother Earth.
Impressive as Romero’s credentials already are, still there is much, much more to admire and to believe in the man. His keen sense of nationalism imbued with the life and teachings of Jose Rizal is awe-inspiring. A surge of nationalism in one’s bloodstream always ensues from listening to Romero speaking of the national hero. No wonder then of the Knights of Rizal mushrooming in all corners of the land.
What about his Abu Sayyaf interlude? So what about it? Romero proved himself every inch a caballero fleeing the embattled bandits’ refuge not by his lonesome but taking along his friend and a young boy to safety and freedom. In a situation even less perilous, not even that life-threatening as the one Romero was damned in, who would not go for self-preservation first, and forget the others?
True grit inheres in Romero’s character.
There is no question, not even an iota of doubt, that Romero will make the best elected leader. On that proposition, all the mediamen are agreed. The question that remains is for which position should Romero aspire.
A straw vote of those at lunch was taken: nine for mayor, four for congressman, and two abstentions – whichever.
There, it is to the best interest of Angeles City that Romero should run – and win – the mayorship.
(Pampanga News, May 25-31, 2006)