The Gordon mystique
DISASTER RESPONSE takes the face of the erudite Senator Richard J. Gordon. With him as the most active do-everything hands-on persona in the continuing human tragedy that is the Princess of the Stars, Dick Gordon’s value as crisis manager is proven again; his worth as a true national leader, affirmed anew.
To us who have known, and worked with him, even for but a short time, leadership is inborn in Dick. Here’s a piece I wrote in the June 1984 issue of Live! Magazine published by now-CDC Director Max Sangil.
The Gordon mystique
IN THE guise of protecting the people’s interests but in fact advancing their own, and motivated by nothing nobler than personal hatred, mud-slinging detractors have consistently assaulted his person with the twin-battering rams of verbal abuse and legal loopholes.
Indeed, there is nary an activity he initiated that did not come under siege from self-anointed but can’t-do vigilantes. A man of a lesser mettle would have crumbled under the pressure subjected by these people to his office.
Yet, despite all these and more, Olongapo City Mayor Richard Gordon has emerged triumphant. Proving to one and all that he is of the mold rare leaders are made from. Consequential to his personal victory is the uplift of his city. Rather, as he himself would put it, his personal success is only incidental to the development of the city.
As the city progresses and the name Gordon is deeply etched in the psyche of the city residents, the nay-surrender critics are dumbfounded in consternation over their continuing failure to cut the Gordian Knot, to find the Achilles heel that would make Young Gordon vulnerable to their assaults. They have done almost everything to discredit Gordon to no avail.
They have thrown the books at him when he started the unarguably phenomenal Mardi Gras. While their case turned to a crop of deficiency, the city found itself with an International Youth Center, and then a P1.2 million People’s Pool.
They made the dubious allegation that Gordon collected P2.50 per cigarette and candy vendor per day. This stirred a hornet’s nest – they at the receiving end of a protest demonstration by an angry group of vendors.
The proverbial Glums (of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travel) that they are, they said that nothing could be done with the anarchic state of traffic in the city. Today, Metro Manila is green with envy of the color code in keepney and traffic routing that has become a model component in urban planning.
Even such a thorny issue as scavenging at the Subic Base has met a successful resolution with the formation of a cooperative of sort among scavengers, complete with a trust fund to draw money from in cases of emergency.
The list of developments in the city is too long to be contained in just one piece of an article. It may even end with the apotheosis of Dick Gordon which this writer has no intention of making.
Suffice it to sum up that the Olongapo that Gordon inherited from his predecessor is nothing more than an American fief of filth, moral decay and stink – so different from that envisioned by the Old Gordon when he valantly fought for the city charter; a nightmare of a contradiction to the planned urban center the Mother Gordon worked for.
Today with Dick Gordon all those visions have started coming to full realization.
Unlike his detractors and critics, we have found the key to the Gordon mystique. It is so simple in its complexity.
Talent, genius, determination,persistence and ambition are inherent traits in Gordon. These too are innate in many leaders but they have amounted to nothing, that is true. As a matter of fact, local leaders who also have such but could not hold their candle to Gordon have become so envious of him that they have done even the most irrational things in some of their fora just to discredit him.
The more important thing that has become a way for Gordon, but still an elusive bird to others, is to couple those characteristics with a definitive direction. That of aligning these innate gifts toward the attainment of the people’s liberation from what they and the leader perceive as evils. A singular direction that is above all else, even political expediency and party interests.
It is that and nothing more that serves as Dick Gordon’s Holy Grail and sacred shield against all envious political pretenders.
Would one still wonder why Dick Gordon still prevails while all others have failed?
xxxxx
FROM OLONGAPO City mayor, Gordon went on to become Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority chair, Department of Tourism secretary and now Senator of the Republic – earning the respect and esteem of the people with his brand of service and leadership.
To us who have known, and worked with him, even for but a short time, leadership is inborn in Dick. Here’s a piece I wrote in the June 1984 issue of Live! Magazine published by now-CDC Director Max Sangil.
The Gordon mystique
IN THE guise of protecting the people’s interests but in fact advancing their own, and motivated by nothing nobler than personal hatred, mud-slinging detractors have consistently assaulted his person with the twin-battering rams of verbal abuse and legal loopholes.
Indeed, there is nary an activity he initiated that did not come under siege from self-anointed but can’t-do vigilantes. A man of a lesser mettle would have crumbled under the pressure subjected by these people to his office.
Yet, despite all these and more, Olongapo City Mayor Richard Gordon has emerged triumphant. Proving to one and all that he is of the mold rare leaders are made from. Consequential to his personal victory is the uplift of his city. Rather, as he himself would put it, his personal success is only incidental to the development of the city.
As the city progresses and the name Gordon is deeply etched in the psyche of the city residents, the nay-surrender critics are dumbfounded in consternation over their continuing failure to cut the Gordian Knot, to find the Achilles heel that would make Young Gordon vulnerable to their assaults. They have done almost everything to discredit Gordon to no avail.
They have thrown the books at him when he started the unarguably phenomenal Mardi Gras. While their case turned to a crop of deficiency, the city found itself with an International Youth Center, and then a P1.2 million People’s Pool.
They made the dubious allegation that Gordon collected P2.50 per cigarette and candy vendor per day. This stirred a hornet’s nest – they at the receiving end of a protest demonstration by an angry group of vendors.
The proverbial Glums (of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travel) that they are, they said that nothing could be done with the anarchic state of traffic in the city. Today, Metro Manila is green with envy of the color code in keepney and traffic routing that has become a model component in urban planning.
Even such a thorny issue as scavenging at the Subic Base has met a successful resolution with the formation of a cooperative of sort among scavengers, complete with a trust fund to draw money from in cases of emergency.
The list of developments in the city is too long to be contained in just one piece of an article. It may even end with the apotheosis of Dick Gordon which this writer has no intention of making.
Suffice it to sum up that the Olongapo that Gordon inherited from his predecessor is nothing more than an American fief of filth, moral decay and stink – so different from that envisioned by the Old Gordon when he valantly fought for the city charter; a nightmare of a contradiction to the planned urban center the Mother Gordon worked for.
Today with Dick Gordon all those visions have started coming to full realization.
Unlike his detractors and critics, we have found the key to the Gordon mystique. It is so simple in its complexity.
Talent, genius, determination,persistence and ambition are inherent traits in Gordon. These too are innate in many leaders but they have amounted to nothing, that is true. As a matter of fact, local leaders who also have such but could not hold their candle to Gordon have become so envious of him that they have done even the most irrational things in some of their fora just to discredit him.
The more important thing that has become a way for Gordon, but still an elusive bird to others, is to couple those characteristics with a definitive direction. That of aligning these innate gifts toward the attainment of the people’s liberation from what they and the leader perceive as evils. A singular direction that is above all else, even political expediency and party interests.
It is that and nothing more that serves as Dick Gordon’s Holy Grail and sacred shield against all envious political pretenders.
Would one still wonder why Dick Gordon still prevails while all others have failed?
xxxxx
FROM OLONGAPO City mayor, Gordon went on to become Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority chair, Department of Tourism secretary and now Senator of the Republic – earning the respect and esteem of the people with his brand of service and leadership.
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 6:23 PM
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