Indefatigable Marides

It was a joy to interview the youthful and pretty better half of Chairman Bayani Fernando of the MMDA, Mayor Marides Carlos-Fernando of progressive Marikina City for our show Breaking Barriers. Now on her second term as mayor of the shoe capital of the country, Marides proudly reports that one of the highlights of her mayoralty is the award given to the city of Marikina as the Most Competitive City in the Philippines. The prestigious Ford Foundation and the Asian Institute of Management have given due recognition to the city’s efforts at improving the over-all quality of life of the citizens of Marikina through several projects. The criteria for the award included the quality of infrastructure in the city which considered accessibility. Marides reports that the city has been working for 14 years towards this end and has been gaining considerable grounds. The current bridge project from the C5 by-pass to Marcos Highway for instance is expected to finish by next year. Along the Marcos Highway, bicycle lanes are being built that will enable Marikeños to bike from Marikina to the MRT Station, park their bikes at the station and take the MRT to any part of Manila they wish to go to.

Marikina is the first bicycle-friendly city in the country because both Bayani and Marides have been actively promoting bicycles as an alternative mode of transportation. Marides has been working with the World Bank in promoting this project, with the World Bank giving them much needed technical support. If the city folks take to this idea, Marikina will be pollution-free in no time, its citizens healthy with a lot of daily exercise and a little more to spend, thanks to the rising cost of gasoline. Likewise, traffic will be at a more manageable level with less cars and public transport on the road. Since Marides concedes that they simply cannot widen the roads, providing sidewalks and bicycle lanes would be the next viable solution. And while they recognize that tricycles are still very much a part of our communities, the city of Marikina under Marides has stopped issuing franchises to these trikes and are also strictly implementing the rule which bans tricycles in major thoroughfares. We cannot over-emphasize the dangers these trikes pose in the national highways.

The city of Marikina scored highest over-all on the six criteria for the award given by the Asian Institute of Management and the Ford Foundation. They considered, apart from the quality of infrastructure of the city, the quality of life of its citizens (are there enough parks, is there an efficient system of garbage collection, is sanitation at an optimum high, etc.); the quality of educational attainment (are there enough public schools and colleges, are there training facilities for technical education, etc.); the quality of local governance (is the city responsive to the needs of the people, is it pro-active in its approach to encourage business in Marikina?); the cost of doing business in Marikina (cost of electricity, rentals, warehouses, office space, etc.); and lastly how Marikina promotes business in the community.

Relevant to this, tax collection in the city has been increasing yearly although Marikina has not effected any increase in its local taxes. Effective tax mapping, computerization and vigilant collection coupled with a few perks such as a 20 percent discount on taxes if paid early have done wonders for their tax collection.

Marides is also proud to report that the World Health Organization has named Marikina one of the healthiest cities in the world, Marikina having gotten three of the six awards given out by WHO. Marides has been quietly working with the WHO on programs that would educate their public school students on sanitation and proper nutrition, and educating their citizenry on the eventualities of disasters. The good mayor believes that empowering the people through the right education will make Marikina a healthier city, with less diabetes and heart disease incidences. She is particularly promoting the 10,000 steps/day quota for everyone as an effective and free ticket to good health. I remember Dr. Augusto Litonjua, head of the Philippine Diabetic Society, who said that, in the light of the near epidemic proportions of diabetes not only in the Philippines but worldwide, government should take a more pro-active role in preventing diabetes through education and healthier lifestyles. Marides is in the forefront of this health concern. The city government is in fact pre-occupied with educating the mothers of the communities on cost-efficient food budgets. At P100/day, housewives can provide nutritious meals for their families with the choice of the right vegetables and the proper way of cooking them. This, together with their advocacy of making Marikina a bicycle-riding city and providing the right infrastructure support have truly empowered its citizens.

Let’s not forget their efforts at making sports an affordable and attractive option. As part of their three-pronged efforts at improving tourism in Marikina, they have been sponsoring international competitions in the city. Marikina has been actively promoting shooting as a sport in cooperation with Armscor by sponsoring shoot fests in the city. The Japanese tourists have been lured into the city with these competitions. Did you know that there are no firing ranges in Japan? I didn’t know that until Marides told me. Packaging these international competitions with other attractions like golf and spa treats, the city has been successfully increasing tourism in the city. Speaking of this, Marikina will be hosting the Women’s Football Competition of the Southeast Asian Games this November, with the athletes billed at the Marikina Hotel.

The Marikina Hotel was rescued by Marides from being garnished by the National Home Mortgage Finance Corp. It was an abandoned tenement housing project, left to seed until the city government paid off its debts. Too expensive to maintain as a tenement housing project, the city decided to convert it into a hotel which also serves as a training center for housekeepers, cooks and service providers.

On the issue of informal settlers (previously known as squatters), Marides also proudly reports that they have, thus far, relocated 25,000 families. Most of these informal settlers used to live by the river banks, a dangerous perch especially when the rivers waters swelled in the rainy season. Marides explains that her husband Bayani passed an ordinance in his time declaring 90 meters from the center line of the river as waterway and thus off limits to residences. Families in this easement were relocated to higher grounds and provided with land under the Community Mortgage Program where previous owners willing to sell their land to the government will be paid fairly. Beneficiary families now pay between P300-P600/month, depending on the size of their land for these lots which they will eventually own. With no more land to spare in the city, however, Marides says her administration is looking at high-rise building as the next option for mass housing. With this scheme, the government need not sell land. Rent of space for these high-rise tenement housing projects are the next viable thing, which is what more progressive countries are offering their impoverished citizens.

It was indeed a pleasant, informative afternoon with Marides Fernando, Mayor of Marikina City. I understand they get as much as 5,000 visitors a week, some from other government agencies wanting to learn more about Marikina’s tourism and infrastructure thrust. They patiently tour such groups around the city, proudly explaining their advocacies and sharing their knowledge about community planning. That’s the indefatigable Marides Fernando for you.

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

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