Man of the Year

EXCELLENCE IS a passion; good governance, a duty; service to the people, a commitment.
The cardinal virtues of leadership in a republican state – long lost in the parody of democracy that is the Philippines – find renaissance in Mayor Oscar Samson Rodriguez of the City of San Fernando. And the Fernandino could not have been happier, nay, more blessed and prouder: of his city and his leader. As 2009 proved yet another banner year for the city, reaping just about every recognition in myriad fields of endeavor.
The Christmas Lantern Capital of the Philippines, naturally takes the Hall of Famer Award as “Best LGU Implementer of the One-Town-One-Product (OTOP) Program in Region III” for its uniquely magnificent lanterns memorialized to titanic dimensions in the annual Giant Lantern Festival. Already a rage throughout the Philippines, the Parul Sampernandu made a global impact during the administration of Mayor Rodriguez with its debut in Paris, France and in Vienna, Austria, its counterpart festival in San Francisco, California in the years past, and at the Philippine Center in New York this Christmas season past.
The Best PESO (Public Employment Service Office) in Central Luzon given by the Department of Labor and Employment in February merited the city’s entry into the national finals, where it gained second- place honors in October.
Undisputed champion in bureaucratic efficiency and effectiveness, the city government was elevated in March by the Central Luzon Growth Corridor Foundation to the Hall of Fame Award for Outstanding Achievement as “Consistent First Place Winner for Three Consecutive Years (2006-2008)” in the implementation of documented streamlined procedures on the issuance of mayor’s permit.
In virtual affirmation of the Rodriguez administration’s definitive solution to the Gordian Knot entangling the bureaucracy, the Civil Service Commission in September hailed San Fernando as the First City Government in Central Luzon to comply with the Anti-Red Tape Act of 2007.
That, further buttressed by the successive ISO 9001:2008 Certification of its Quality Management System awarded by the Certification International in October, and the Certificate of Recognition for its Compliance with ISO 9001:2008 Standards in the Issuance of the Mayor’s Permit given by the Government Quality Management Committee of the Office of the President in December.

Business-friendly

Accomplished efforts toward an efficacious bureaucracy moved the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry in October to declare San Fernando as the Philippine’s “Most Business-Friendly Local Government Unit (City Category, Level 1) for 2009.”
A declaration finding indubitable verity in the city assessor’s office being awarded by the Bureau of Local Government Finance in December as “Top Real Property Tax Producer Award, City Level.”
Being business-friendly pays, and pays handsomely. A succinct, if blunt, take on the imperative of nurturing the goose that lays the golden egg, of pasturing the milking cow, for the sustenance of the herder and his community. Or amor con amor se paga, love begets love, as the Castilian holds in affairs of the heart and of the purse.
Amity with business takes to an ever higher level with the city government signing in December a memorandum of agreement with the Department of Trade and Industry for the implementation of the Philippine Business Registry (PBR) Project that will put in place on-line business registration facilities in the city.
Auguring well for the bullishness of business is the peace and orderliness reigning in the city which peace and order council merited runner-up honors on the national level in 2009 from the National Peace and Order Council. And an environmental awareness well put into practice gaining first runner-up honors likewise in the Clean and Green Awards of the provincial government.
Still, the highest accolades showered unto the city in 2009 were that which made most manifest the city administration’s – okay, Mayor Rodriguez’s – core value: Excellence of governance in serving the people.
In February, handed out by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo herself in Malacanang to Mayor Rodriguez was the Gawad Galing Pook 2008 for Outstanding Local Governance Program: Making Governance a Shared Responsibility. This is the second Gawad Galing Pook for San Fernando under the Rodriguez administration, its first in 2005 for heritage preservation.
Later that same day, the United Nations Development Programme and the Galing Pook Foundation, awarded the city a Special Citation on Local Capacity Incentive Mechanism for Local Governance.
In September, the Institute for Solidarity in Asia (ISA) conferred on the local government of the City of San Fernando “Institutionalized Status” for its implementation of the Public Governance System (PGS), the first ever in the entire Philippines.
So exemplary is the City of San Fernando experience in the performance governance system that the ISA crafted for the city the Maharlika Hall of Fame Award for PGS Institutionalization.

Revolution in governance
Spoke the ISA’s Dr. Jesus Estanislao during the conferment rites: “While other government agencies and units are just starting their PGS, you are actually now institutionalizing it. This is because of the commendable and exemplary performance of your city officials led by Mayor Oscar Rodriguez and the selflessness of your very own multi-sectoral governance council…
“This is a revolution in governance for development, because all the while, we have been emphasizing democracy, freedom. And that’s fine. That is a battle we have already won. What we are really looking at is: Can we use that democratic space for the genuine, integral and total development of our people?
“I think you have the best example right here in San Fernando. You can lead the way…With citizen participation, public-private partnership, all the projects you are doing like the emphasis on education, the integrated schools in elementary and high school and the city college, I haven’t heard so much of those elsewhere in the country...
“That is why the leadership of Mayor Oca is critical. And these good things are coming right out of San Fernando. With the country’s corruption index going up and up and things going the wrong way all the time, you come to San Fernando and ask: Is this possible? Are you really in the Philippines when you begin seeing and talking about all these projects?
“That is why, if you are looking at a real revolution in governance, it is right here in San Fernando.”
Right in the City of San Fernando, indeed, is a revolution. Right in Mayor Rodriguez is the revolutionary. Right is the cause of his revolution: Serve the People – that which bred a Ka Jasmin in the ideological ferment of a bygone era, that which sustained a Mayor Oca to determinedly march on towards total liberation.
Where good governance and its impact on the people is concerned, Mayor Rodriguez, will certainly make more than our Man of the Year – even more deservingly, our Man of the Decade.