Mayors Bayani and Marides Fernando – the dynamic couple who transformed Marikina

For the United Nations Biennium Plan of 2002-2003 and the Medium Term plans of 2002-2007, the United Nations agencies of UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO, FAO, ILO, etc. are networking together in each member state for a major reform of their services. With the UNDP (United National Development Program) as lead agency they have put together the "country best practice" project for local governance.

Due to the September 11 event in New York, the powerful donor countries and World Bank agencies are more cautious in giving aid unless the beneficiaries have proven themselves as competent and trustworthy. Let us see why they make an exception for Marikina.

The Marikina Glass City Hall and the City Court House

What can be more transparent than see-through glass paneled offices of a city hall? What can make the people respect the law than the city courts right across the city hall with the prison cells right above the building? A maximum of 400 inmates can be held at one time.

As one steps into the ground floor of the Marikina City Hall, one would be able to see all the city hall personnel in their glass-paneled offices. The employees wear neat white and dark blue uniform with bars on their shoulders stamped with the "shoe industry" seal of Marikina. They look like military naval base personnel. All offices including the City Assessor, Health Officer, Social Welfare, City Engineering General Services, City Budget Offices, Legal Services and City Planning have clear signages over their doors. The uniform furniture are modular gray tables and chairs, filing cabinets with neatly organized documents.

It is our practice to have a weekly meeting with our line managers at the OB Montessori Center Greenhills headquarters. A few weeks ago, this team of 15 school administrative, finance and academic heads, as well as our school branch coordinators of Angeles, Pampanga, Las Piñas and Sta. Ana made a field trip to Marikina. We were given the Lakbay Aral program, the city prepares for the numerous visitors who come weekly from all over the country. We took along our Student Council officers who came in their smart cadet officers’ uniform.

A fashion show for the garment industry was being rehearsed in the central foyer when we arrived. In spite of the rush then of the mayor and councilors to go on their own field trip to Singapore to observe their counterparts in an efficient and prosperous city state, Tom Aguilar, the City Planning Officer, personally described the governance style of their city hall.

The Mariqueños transacting business sit comfortably in the foyer with a city hall personnel listing their names and card numbers. After a 30-minute conference with Mr. Aguilar on city management held in the Boardroom, we walked down to start the city tour. The people we saw earlier had already gone having been served efficiently.

What mayors usually don’t tell

Shooting not two but three birds with one stone, I took along a third party, the current North Greenhills Association president Atty. Don Alviar and corporate secretary Julie Maningat. In the past 30 years, my family has lived in Greenhills. From the time my husband, Max, became the founding president in 1972, the San Juan mayors and the barangay captains have never made us aware of the city revenue due our barangay. "Thirty percent of the Internal Revenue Allotment is due a barangay. That is automatically given," Mayor Marides said in a matter of fact tone.

Three out of four Greenhills villages form a barangay under San Juan. Greenhills East and Wack Wack villages make up another barangay in Mandaluyong. The Greenhills East Association had to sue the Mandaluyong mayor in court before they were given their IRA allotment. As one of the biggest taxpayers of San Juan the only help given to our village is an irregular garbage collection instead of an adequate budget for the barangay hall and general maintenance for the community.

Atty Alviar and I dropped by the Marikina Budget Office. Chief Zenaida M. Santos gave us the December 2001 notice of the Department of Budget and Management OIC Ruby R. Esteban to Concepcion Dos, one of 14 barangays of Marikina. With a population of 23,845 the barangay chairman is notified that "the MDS Check No. 0000362334-BD in the amount of P958,222,840 has been deposited at LBP-Malacañang Branch of which P189,803 was credited to your Current Account. Said amount shall cover the share of your Barangay representing the last monthly IRA release for CY 2001... Last November, we also released one-fourth of the unreleased one month CY 2000 IRA. The scheme for the release of the remaining three-fourths is now being finalized by DILG, DOF, ULAP and this Department."

Mrs. Santos also gave us a copy of the IRA 2002 computation of how a total of P64,562,479 has been divided among the other 13 barangays of Barangka, Calumpang, Concepcion Uno, Industrial Valley, Jesus dela Peña, Malanday, Marikina Heights, Nangka, Parang, San Roque, Santo Niño and Tanong.

People’s Day with Mayor Marides Fernando

For the cover story of People Asia magazine, I made an appointment to interview the lady mayor of Marikina, Marides Carlos Fernando or MCF. It is the third visit I am making to this unusual city whose wonder has spread within our country and in foreign lands. Although 30 people filled up the waiting room, I confidently checked with the receptionist when I could see the mayor with the People Asia assistant editor and photographer.

"I am sorry, Ma’m, but you’ll have to wait. I am afraid she may not be able to spare time because she is due to speak at the Quezon Sports Club for the Women’s Week celebration." Before I could get upset, a smartly dressed lady introduced herself to me as the City Information Officer, Millette Lorenzo. She assured me that the mayor would make time for the interview. Before I knew it all the 30 visitors dwindled fast in number. I requested to listen to the last groups and have the mayor photographed in action.

The first photo we took was the lady mayor swearing in the officers of a jeepney drivers’ association. "Congratulations! Huwag na kayong magpapahuli (Don’t get caught now)." The drivers happily responded and requested for a souvenir photo with her. She cheerfully called the city hall photographer ‘Gatbo’ to do it.

Next, the organizers of the Riverbank Runners’ Association asked her for support of prizes and a coach. Right away she assured them, "I can give you the trophies, medals, Milo drinks, bottled water..." They inquired about cash prizes to which she readily replied, "That’s your part as organizers. I can give you a list of sponsors you can write to, but I am sorry I can’t write them myself. As for the training coach we can send you one from our Sports Center Runners’ Club which has 300 members."

The last two callers were Ateneo university students inquiring about the Marikina river anti-pollution program and the Marikina Settlement Office from the MSO Chief Boy Ponce. It took almost all of the three terms of former Mayor Bayani Fernando to relocate 10,000 squatters along the Marikina riverbank. The MSO has been helping them to build their communities by giving P300,000 in goods, never cash for constructing multi-purpose assembly office and basketball court.

The lady mayor calls her husband ‘Bayan’

In her State of the City address this January, Mayor Marides proudly referred to her husband as the foundation builder of Marikina City who has shaped up the city’s landscape. Given the name Bayani (hero), by his nation-conscious father, former Mayor Gil Fernando, the three-term mayor has lived up to his name.

I arranged to meet both of them for a second session of interview for People Asia on a more leisure-paced day, Saturday. The meeting place was at the riverside at the ‘Nothing New’ restaurant, one of seven food outlets that former Mayor Bayani ‘BF’ Fernando developed from the old Utex Mills. This was once the largest textile mill in Asia.

Today, BF (as Bayani Fernando is usually addressed by city hall personnel) after three dynamic terms of transforming Marikina, has resumed the chairmanship of the BF Corporation, ‘the builder of Philippines’ tallest structures’. A mechanical engineer by profession, his innovative design in recycling what others would call junk made me understand why he was able to resurrect the life of old Marikina.

With a red and black steam train, hauled from Pasudeco sugar hacienda, as the most attractive tourist landmark of the Riverbank Park, BF showed me the turn of the century-style concert hall, the STUDIO, which he filled with catwalks, self-elevating stage and automatic window curtains. Next to it is the BOILER Disco or Music KTV Mill, where he cut the old giant boiler into two, one part became the stage for live bands and the other part became the bar. The gallery seats were over the whole length of another boiler, about seven meters long – Excellent taste in design. The other eateries he made are PANADERIA, SINIGANG AT SINAING and LA OYA, named after a favorite Marikina beef stew with saging na saba.

Mayor Marides did her masters in Hotel and Restaurant Management at Cornell University in New York. She worked at Manila Hotel and was a kitchen design consultant. She competently chaired the BF Group of Companies while her husband was mayor for almost a decade between 1992 to 2001. "Politics is in my husband’s blood. Bayan’s father was Mayor Gil Fernando way back in 1946 to 1948."

If angels were to govern men...

The fourth president of the United States James Madison once said, "What is government itself but the greatest of all reflection upon human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external or internal controls on government would be necessary."

(Next week: Part 2, Calling Marikina Rescue Line 161)

(For more information please e-mail at obmci@mozcom.com)