Bacolod mayor: Look at cities outside Metro

MANILA, Philippines - Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia invited members of the graduating class of the San Beda College’s Graduate Schools of Business, Law, and Liturgy to look at cities outside Metro Manila as contributors to the development of the country.

Leonardia, commencement speaker of San Beda College in ceremonies held at the historic Abbey Church of Our Lady of Montserrat recently, said the success of local government units would contribute much to the country’s growth and progress.

Leonardia said he was both surprised and honored at being invited to address the group that included some of the country’s successful professionals.

He said it was also a great privilege because those in the provinces usually invite people from Manila to give prestige to their activities, but here he was, doing the opposite, a “probinsyano” being invited to address a Manila audience, and in San Beda College at that.

Leonardia spoke about the role of cities, particularly Bacolod, in nation-building, citing the opportunities awaiting especially businessmen in places other than Metro Manila.

“Put your money in the countryside,” he said. “Better still, put them in Bacolod.”

Leonardia cited the latest developments in Bacolod, including its recent recognition from both national and international entities.

Bacolod, he said, was named by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry as the Most Business-Friendly City in the Philippines; ranked second in the “Ten Growth Centers” identified by the Asian Institute of Management, the United States Agency for International Development and the German Technical Cooperation; and got the third spot in the “Ten Next Wave Cities,” according to the Commission on Information and Communications Technology, the Business Processing Association of the Philippines and the Department of Trade and Industry.

To the law graduates, Leonardia recounted that he studied in a provincial school where almost all of them were working students, but that majority of his classmates made it in the Bar examinations, a number of them in the top 20.

He said he was not able to practice law because public governance beckoned him, but his background served him well in his work as a public servant.

Addressing those from the School of Liturgy, Leonardia took note of the religiosity of Filipinos, giving boxing champion Manny Pacquiao as an example.

He said he is flattered to be called the “lucky charm” of Pacquiao, adding though that the boxer is an example of a truly God-loving person whose faith and devotion is ingrained in both his public and private life and that in the Almighty, he has more than just a “lucky charm.”