This early, there are some who are floating the names of certain politicians who may run for mayor of Manila in the next elections.
The funny thing though, is that none of them is a true-blue Manilan.
Either the elective posts in their native hometowns are already filled up with their own relatives or family members and they merely want to expand their dynasty, or they are eyeing the Manila mayorship as a springboard to seek higher office.
I need not go into details but we all know what happens when the one sitting as mayor is not really from the city which he is supposed to serve.
Based on experience, no mayor can effectively serve a town or city that is alien to him.
Firstly, there is no genuine ‘malasakit’ or concern on his part for the residents. Why would one care when he or she did not live there in any part of his life?
It still makes a whole lot of difference if the one leading the city is one who had been raised and who continues to live there. This way, there is personal knowledge about what the city really needs, the problems confronting it and what solutions can be done that would redound to the benefit of Manilans.
There is also the wholehearted concern for one’s fellow city residents and the desire to uplift their living conditions and the status of the city itself.
In the last elections, the residents of Manila made their stance on the matter known, by overwhelmingly voting for Mayor Honey Lacuna, as against her opponents that included someone known to be a resident of another city.
Manila voters sent a strong message that they cannot be fooled and what they want is someone who has a proven track record in serving the city and who is truly a product of the city or who is one with and for them.
Mayor Honey and her entire family have been residents of Manila since time immemorial. She was raised, earned her degree and had a family of her own in Manila. She continues to live in their modest home in Manila and clearly does not have any intention of settling somewhere else.
Even in the selection of who should head the premier police force in the city, she clearly prefers one who is from Manila or at least who had served in various posts in the city to ensure that he knows the ins and outs of Manila by heart.
Her being a woman, a mother and a doctor also helped raise the bar of mayorship in Manila, as can be gleaned from her performance and approach in addressing the needs of the most vulnerable sectors in the city.
As of this writing, Mayor Honey, aided by her loyal Vice Mayor Yul Servo-Nieto, had just finished personally supervising, at times handing herself, the Christmas food boxes for the city’s 695,000 families and about 180,000 gift boxes for our senior citizens. This is on top of the updated payouts being distributed to persons with disability, senior citizens, solo parents as well as Grade 12 and students from the city-run colleges of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila and the Universidad de Manila, covering up to the month of December.
Manilans know the kinds of things they deserve and certainly, being experimented on by ‘outsiders’ is not one of them.
These politicians who are non-Manilans and yet eye Manila as an addition to their power collection should know that the capital city cannot be the venue for their on-the-job training. Do it somewhere else.
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