Hoping to change the way the public often perceives him to be a “dictator,” Metro Manila Development Authority Chairman Bayani Fernando has decided to re-introduce himself to the public as a man with a huge hammer and a huge heart.
The agency’s new logo is expected to help present the idea that the MMDA cares, by somehow advocating for tough love when it comes to implementing the law.
“The heart is for the love. It expresses our love, our concern for our constituents, for Metro Manila, for everybody. It is also with that love that we are serving our fellowmen,” Fernando told The Star.
“The sledgehammer or the maso is actually to represent law, implementing the law and the political will that puts it in effect,” he said explaining in the second most noticeable symbol in the logo.
The MMDA’s new emblem also shows the vine Cadena de Amor circling the sledgehammer to symbolize the 17 cities and municipalities of the metropolis.
It also bears the words May Silbi and Works Well embracing the heart with the phrase “MMDA Labs You” right below it.
Fernando said the combination of a sledgehammer and a heart effectively expresses how he and his agency is trying to make the public care for Metro Manila. “Laws are solutions but laws to the Filipino are a restraint of government to the individual. Pakiramdam nila ito ay kontra sa kanilang freedom,” he explained. “But to an American, laws are solutions. That is why when faced with a problem, an American would readily quip ‘oh, there ought to be a law’,” he said.
Fernando expressed sadness over how Filipinos call you a Hitler and depicted as a man of no compassion when you implement the law.
“But actually implementing the law is the most compassionate thing to do, otherwise people will kill each other, there will be chaos,” he said.