STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS 2005
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I suppose it's not too late to greet you a happy new year and happy 3 kings –3, and not 2 – for ‘Da King' lives on, contrary to those text messages going around! and I do hope that all of you had a chance to see the ‘Makati New Year's Eve Countdown' at the corner of Ayala and Paseo. Great fireworks! ( ad lib) At any rate, it is that time of year once again when I present the 2004 accomplishments and some 2005 plans of the Makati city government, and I am glad that tradition dictates that I do so before my peers in the rotary. I am sure that many of us had perceived 2004 to be a terribly bad year – and rightfully so – as the national economy had gone from bad to worse, with no bright prospects ahead; and aggravated even further by natural disasters, political volatility, unbridled corruption, and an alarming rise in poverty. Last year, we were all witness to the most disgraceful presidential elections ever; and our institutions, including our courts of law, had all but lost even the least bit of respect of the very people they are supposed to serve and protect. Amid all this hardship, however, we in Makati registered an increase of 0.4 per cent in total collected revenues – admittedly a slight increase, but an increase nonetheless, and contrary to the national experience. Our revenues rose from 6.609 billion pesos in 2003 to 6.636 billion in 2004 which, mind you, does not include our barangays' internal revenue allotments and other miscellaneous income. If we were to include them, as other LGUs do when they announce their total incomes, and especially when considered on a per capita basis, then Makati becomes undisputedly the richest LGU in the country. We would like to think that our increasing are a concrete substantiation of our new claim to being not only ‘business-friendly,' but ‘business-stimulating.' For participatory governance and strategic partnership with the private sector have always been trademarks of the present Makati leadership. The creation and continued growth of the Makati Business Development Council, and our regular ‘focus group discussions' by sector, among others, have established lines of communications for the furtherance of shared objectives and common interests. But infinitely more significant and critical than the generation of revenues is the application of those resources. It is my privilege to report that for the year 2004 alone, almost 1.4 billion pesos of the Makati taxpayers' money went into the completion of 6 new public schools, 3 community complexes, an integrated ‘scene of the crime' facility for the Makati police force, and the now operational Makati Acute Care Center, or MACC, all of which were constructed according to the highest standards of quality. The MACC, which stands in the original location of the Ospital ng Makati along Malugay Street, is a modern facility that is tailored specifically to address emergency cases. It is equipped with the latest in emergency equipment, including 3 advanced life support ground ambulances. It has 10 specialists and consultants duly certified by the Philippine Board of Emergency Medicine, and 15 other medical officers that will man the center on a 24/7 basis. To date, Makati City has a total of 60 public school buildings; 29 health centers, aside from the Ospital ng Makati and the Makati Acute Care Center; 29 barangay multi-purpose halls; 23 sports complexes and covered courts in the barangays, not counting those in the exclusive villages; 2 housing projects that provide decent and affordable homes to some 2,000 households; 7 major police and fire stations; 10 livelihood training centers; a youth center; a social development center; the Makati Park and Garden; the Makati Coliseum; the University of Makati; and, of course, the 24-story Makati City Hall which you have all been to at one time or another. Incidentally, within the first half of this year, we should see the first-ever local government olympic-size swimming pool become operational. We have likewise been pouring in much of our resources to full computerization. As of today, we already have 11 barangays that are computerized tax payment system-enabled, reducing the transaction to 2-3 minutes right in the barangay halls, and rendering the process practically paperless. Our Geographical Information System, or GIS, now provides us with vital data for real property appraisal and tax monitoring, for business taxes, Zoning and Urban Development, Peace and Order, emergency response, and maintenance of utilities – all computerized to eliminate human error of both the unintentional and malicious variety! The Makati website, which is still the only LGU website awarded by graphic expo, has been offering downloadable forms for various permits and licenses, and online application for Senior Citizen's, White, Yellow, and Blu cards. And talking about cards, we do intend to consolidate all of these into what will be known as the ‘Makati B-card'. No, it's not what you're thinking! the ‘B' stands for benefit. It will be a card that will encode all personal data of the holder, and indicate what benefits he or she is entitled to. It will include a host of commercial benefits as well, thus making it useful to all Makati constituents. And if you have had occasion to pass by the corner of Ayala and Gil Puyat Avenues, you might have noticed an ongoing construction which will soon be the Makati Central Command Center, linking all police, fire protection, traffic, and rescue forces in the city. By the way, we have also already allocated budgets for a ‘closed circuit TV' or C.C.T.V. within our major roads, to monitor traffic violations and other street crimes, and for overall better traffic management. 2004 was also a milestone year for our health program. Aside from our present emphasis on preventive health care – which saw a 119 percent rise in the number of beneficiaries – we started the process of expanding our ‘Yellow Card' program to include coverage by Philhealth in an effort to create some synergy with the national health program, and likewise to provide our residents access to health services not only in Makati, but in all Philhealth-accredited medical facilities all over the country. As of yearend, your city government has already provided – free of charge – Philhealth membership to over 30,000 families. We project to triple this number before the end of 2005 as we pursue our vision of universal medical insurance coverage for the Makati constituency. It gives us great satisfaction to note that our emphasis on health – having allocated over 500 million pesos for it last year – has resulted in Makati being invariably the healthiest LGU, with the lowest infant mortality rate and the lowest malnutrition rate in the country. But as the saying goes, what good is a healthy body without a healthy mind? Thus, we have maintained our priorities in the field of education. It remains the single highest budgeted program for the city, with over 1.3 billion pesos allocated for various programs – such as computer literacy training in both the barangay halls for residents, and in public schools for students, starting at the pre-school level. We have the balik-aral for out-of-school youth and other dropouts, the non-formal education accreditation and equivalency, the Philippine educational placement test, and tied up with the barangays is the ‘Makati Alternative Learning through Improved Community-School Intervention, or MALICSI. With DepEd Makati, we launched intensive remedial classes in English, Mathematics, and the Sciences–not only for students, but for parents as well, arming them with the proper tools with which they can help and supervise their children's assignments. Our education efforts have been more than vindicated by numerous national contests being won by our students, notably our students' recent victory in the international robotics competition held in Singapore, and by various instances of our public school students being picked as scholars and exchange students to Singapore and the United States. As for our University of Makati, or what we fondly call U-MAK, its dualized system continues to churn out graduates that have been trained not just in school, but more importantly by partner-companies on a ‘hands-on' basis. Furthermore, its nursing college, with a steadily increasing number of enrollees, has expanded by launching a new B.S. Nursing second course program for those who already have a degree in another field. Also worth mentioning are our projects for an electronic library, a fully equipped theater, and a ‘call center' academy. The whole philosophy behind our education program is not simply to turn our students into full-fledged graduates; rather, it is grounded on turning these students into fully productive members of our community. This philosophy extends beyond the traditional classroom and into the Umak-based Makati training, placement, and livelihood consortia which provides practical instruction on hard and soft skills in various fields. Our cooperatives development department has brought the total number of coops to 279 with a total membership of 102,468 persons, and a total capitalization of over 1.7 billion pesos. Additionally, our public employment service office has successfully placed over 7,000 applicants in various companies within Makati. This figure is indeed a far cry from the 1 million jobs we often hear about. But then again, our figures represent actual, real, concrete, and genuine cases of persons that have been provided actual, real, concrete, and genuine jobs. Our social service department has been equally busy. Our senior citizens continue to be pampered with 100 percent free movies, the ‘Lakbay Saya' program that has taken them to as far as Mayon Volcano and to the studios of the noontime TV shows of the major networks, 2 thousand pesos annually, burial assistance under our ‘Blu Card', not to mention the cakes they receive on their birth and wedding anniversaries. Our social programs also continually address the other sectors – the poor, battered women and children, the sick and the dying, and for the first time in 2004, we conducted a ‘persons with disability' congress in order to focus on the needs and wants of the mentally and physically challenged. Incidentally, as part of our social responsibility, we also volunteered to adopt the province of Nueva Ecija in the relief operations as a result of the calamity that struck many provinces recently. I might add that we also rendered assistance to selected towns in the provinces of Quezon, Aurora, Isabela, and Bulacan. I could go on and on. But perhaps it is just as well that I end the litany of our accomplishments with our social programs. After all, the call at present is for all of us, especially the more affluent and the more fortunate, to lend a helping hand. When the poor are all but crushed, and even the middle class are burdened on the one hand by the rising prices of water, electricity, oil products, transportation, and basic consumer goods, not to mention new fees for filing complaints with the fiscal's office, increased passport fees, and a 3-year advanced collection of car registration fees; and on the other by spiraling inflation and stagnant salaries and wages, I simply cannot see how our collective social conscience can remain unperturbed. Government, and even business, which surely has its own portion of problems, must begin to reach out and share. Profitable businesses may want to make do with lesser profits. The others may want to simply be fair and just with their respective constituencies beyond the dictates of the law. Government offices, especially, whether those with proprietary functions or otherwise, should lower operational costs and postpone capital expenditures to fit within their revenues or budgets. And what about stopping the flight of capital? And cashing in some, if not all, of our hoards of foreign currencies? The list can be endless, if we really put our minds to it. Every bit of possibility must be explored for us to overcome our present fiscal, and moral , crisis. You, perhaps more than I, know what ails our country's socio-economy. You know of the culture of corruption and greed that has pervaded almost all sectors of society, and that has been voraciously eating our collective flesh to the bone. All this must stop – for our sake, and for the sake of our children and their children to follow. I suppose it is true that for evil to triumph, it is enough that good men do nothing. I know, however, that there are some good men who have been doing something. Obviously, there are not enough of them; and that is why the activities of ‘Jose Pidal' and his cohorts go on unchecked and unabated. The choice is yours individually, and ours collectively. I am confident that this plea has been heard today by not just a few good men. I am hopeful that the deafening silence amid the unmitigated breakdown of moral values in our society will be broken. And I trust that the condemnable will be condemned. "sa aking pagtatapos, hayaan niyong sariwain ko sa inyo ang ilang pananalita ng isang ginoong napatunayan na ring tunay na marangal at tapat sa bayan: “puno na po ang salop kailangang magkaisa na at kumilos para sa isang bagong umaga!” patuloy po tayong manalig sa Diyos, sa ating bansang Pilipinas, at sa ating mga kapwa pilipino! " Thank you, and good day! |