STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS 2008
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My fellow Rotarians, The year 2007 was perhaps one of the most tumultuous in the city's history. But I stand before you today with undiminished, even growing pride, because of the way our city and its people were able to bounce back from each crisis in no time. No matter how grave the situation we faced, the people of Makati – and that includes the business community – rose to the challenge with extraordinary resilience and optimism. And with the unqualified success of the Makati New Year's Eve Countdown, which drew a record crowd of 35,000 revelers and raised P1 million through a fund drive for the assistance of disaster-stricken families nationwide, we were able to show to the rest of the NATION and to the world that our unity remains strong, and that we will neither be divided nor cowed by any adversity. Indeed, as Horace, the famous Latin poet, once said: “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.” And so it has come to pass, that despite Makati being markedly known as opposition country, it has managed to become what it is today – a best practice act that is available for others to emulate. Almost twenty-two years since I first assumed office as Mayor, Makati has undergone a remarkable transformation. Just to show you how much has changed, let me give a rundown of how things were in 1986, and how things are as of the end of 2007. When I first took over the helm of the city, there were no modern public infrastructures. Now, we have 288 major infrastructure projects completed and fully operational. In 1986, Makati had only 18 public schools, most of which were old and dilapidated; today, we have 39 public school complexes, consisting of 75 modern, well-equipped school buildings that are comparable to private schools. Back then, we only had a technical-vocational school , the Makati Polytechnic Community College. Today, we have the University of Makati, which has an average annual student population of 9,370 with its various courses – including nursing – being run together with the actual sectoral practitioners under what we call the Dualized University Education System (or DUES). From zero universal medical insurance, 78,384 Families AND INDIVIDUAL CARDHOLDERS in Makati now have Philhealth cards under the Makati Health Plus Program, and can thus seek medical treatment in any accredited facility nationwide. From one old, ramshackle Ospital ng Makati, we now have not just a new tertiary hospital in Barangay Pembo, but also a free-standing Acute Care Center in Bel-Air, a first in the Philippines. And from just 4,055 Yellow Card holders, we now have over 130,000 individuals and families enjoying the privileges of the enhanced Yellow Card program. All these were made possible mainly because of the financial stability we have built through the years. From an income of P271 million in 1986, Makati's income has steadily increased under the present Makati leadership, without once incurring a deficit. In 2007, we collected over P8.73 billion, PROBABLY outpacing other bigger LGUs in Metro Manila. If I may be allowed to boast a little, I would like to let you know that in a recent survey conducted by a reputable private research agency among residents and members of the business community, the city government scored high with both sectors, with a 94 percent satisfaction rating for its programs and services among residents, and 89 per cent among the business sector. In the same study, the residents gave yours truly a 96 percent performance rating as the city's mayor, but I got a grade of only 89 per cent from the business sector. Still not bad, considering how I was perceived by that sector when I first started. Napakahirap talagang ligawan! Nguni't patuloy ko kayong susuyuin hanggang sa lubos tayong nagkakaintindihan. But far from becoming complacent with our current status, we in the city government have continued to craft and pursue new and better ways of doing things. In doing so, we have been guided by the wisdom of Theodore Levitt, the American who coined the word “globalization” and became the legendary “father of modern marketing”, who said: “Just as energy is the basis of life itself, and ideas the source of innovation, so is innovation the vital spark of all human change, improvement and progress.” Putting this concept into practice, we recently came up with a framework for our long-term action plan for the city, appropriately coined as “Makati BEST”. BEST is actually an acronym, in which B stands for Best Place to live in; E stands for Educational Excellence; S for Superior Place to do Business; and T for Top Local Government Civil Servants. We have anchored all our programs and projects, policies, and activities on Makati BEST. And for unfailingly giving your support and cooperation to the undertakings of the city government, the members of the business community, together with city residents and clients, deserve great credit for all our noteworthy achievements in 2007. Best Place to live in To date, we have been making significant progress with our thrust of making Makati the Best Place to Live in. Our heavy investments in programs and services especially for health and education have won the resounding approval of our constituents, as shown by the results of the survey I mentioned earlier. Health Makati today remains one of the nation's healthiest cities. In fact, our malnutrition rate further went down last year from 1.2 per cent in 2006 to 1.09 per cent. For the entire 2007, we sustained a “zero-measles” status, owing largely to the intensive city-wide measles vaccination drive we conducted in cooperation with the Department of Health. We are aiming at totally eradicating the disease from our city in 2010. Our efforts towards a healthy citizenry have also been boosted by the recognition of the World Health Organization (WHO) of Makati's successful promotion of “community-based breastfeeding advocacy” in the barangays. We even merited a substantial grant from them for the continuous expansion of the program to the rest of the city. Last year, the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation or Philhealth officially acknowledged that Makati has attained universal health coverage for its constituents – another first for a local government unit. Through the subsidized Philhealth enrolment program of the city government, around 75,000 indigent families in Makati now enjoy access to medical services in any Philhealth-accredited facility in the country. Our health programs, combined with our programs on education and other social services, have undoubtedly clinched for Makati the title of “Most Child-Friendly City” in the National Capital Region for the second straight year. Special Privileges Likewise, Makati's senior citizens continue to be the envy of their contemporaries in other localities because of the unique privileges granted THEM by the city government. And I am sure many, if not all of you, already know what they are. For just the first nine months of 2007, the city government paid over P5 million to theater owners as its share in the cost of around 180,000 movie tickets issued to senior citizens. Under the BLU card program for senior citizens, the city government had released over P34 million for their mid-year cash gift in June and P35 million as year-end cash gift in December 2007, while over P2.5 million was released to the beneficiaries of 835 BLU card holders who died last year. Contrary to what some may think, our senior citizens do not have a monopoly of special benefits from the city government. We have not forgotten the Persons with Disabilities or PWD sector, which also needs our care and attention. In fact, we have introduced two major projects last year – the PWD's transport ID card plus, which entitles cardholders to fare discounts on the Metro Rail Transit (MRT), Light Rail Transit (LRT), provincial buses and local transport groups, and the PWD's movie ID card plus that grants them the privilege of watching movies in all Makati theaters for free. Even the way the new Makati City Hall was constructed indicate our concern for PWD's, and this earned us the distinction of being named the “Most Disabled-Friendly Local Government Unit (LGU) in the National Capital Region (NCR) for 2007” in the search conducted by the National Council for the Welfare of the Disabled and the Department of Transportation and Communication. Infrastructure Last year, we completed eight major infrastructure projects designed to further make our city the best place to live in. I ask you, if you haven't done so yet, to visit our public schools, our barangay halls, our sports complexes, our hospitals, to get a better appreciation of what the city has built for its residents. Environment Another area that the city government has been focusing on is the environment. We could not make light of the havoc wrought by global warming on the weather conditions in various parts of the world, including our nation. This is why the city government has been aggressively pursuing innovative methods to achieve a cleaner and healthier environment for the city. I am pleased to let you know that Makati's intensive campaign for clean air has made some headway, since the Department of Environment and Natural Resources itself confirmed an improved air quality in the city for the first six months of 2007, rating it as “fair”. This we achieved mostly because of our intensive anti-smoke belching campaign and the continuing implementation of our anti-smoking ordinance. We have also engaged in a partnership with Greenpeace, Green Renewable Independent Power Producer Inc., and Solar Electric Company in launching the electric jeepneys, or e-jeeps for short. We hope that when the e-jeep becomes commercially viable, it will address the problems of rising fuel costs, promote the use of alternative fuels, and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Should this prove viable, we hope other cities and municipalities will follow so as to revolutionize public transport towards a cleaner environment for the entire nation. Peace and Order Whatever may be said of the peace and order situation in Makati in the past year, following the Glorietta 2 tragedy and the Peninsula siege, we remain among the most peaceful localities in Metro Manila. As a matter of fact, the Makati Peace and Order Council had been elevated to the Hall of Fame not once, but twice, as the Best City Peace and Order Council in the entire National Capital Region. We also continue to strengthen the Makati Command, Control and Communication – Emergency Alert and Response System, or C3-EARS, which is capable of receiving and responding to emergency calls by dispatching emergency response teams round-the-clock, seven days a week throughout the year. Because of this, our Makati Rescue was the first within minutes to respond to the Glorietta 2 tragedy. I am also proud to report that our city has gained international prominence in its relentless war against illegal drugs in the city. In the annual ACCORD Task Force Meeting on Law Enforcement and Alternative Development held at Yangon, Myanmar recently, the Philippines, represented by the Makati Anti-Drug Abuse Council or MADAC, which is chaired by Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado, was unanimously elected to chair the 7th ACCORD meeting on Alternative Developments this year. This new development has given us the chance to share our experiences in battling the drug menace with other LGUs in Asia. Educational Excellence Having presented the highlights of our accomplishments in terms of Makati as the Best Place to Live in, let me take you through the next part of Makati BEST, which is Educational Excellence. Surely, by now, you all know by heart the various programs of the city government to raise the quality of its public education system to world-class standards. So I would like to put it simply this time, without going into the details of each program. The Makati taxpayers will be glad to know that the P1.3 billion investment of the city government in the education sector proved worthwhile. Makati ranked number one again in the 2007 National Achievement Test (NAT) and in the National Career Assessment Examination (NCAE) in the National Capital Region. Makati public school students have likewise continued to shine in the international arena. Joelle Andrew Caguntar, 11, of Bangkal Elementary School, won a gold medal in the first-ever Wizards at Mathematics International Competition, OR WIZMIC 2007, held in Lucknow , India last October. This is no mean feat, considering that a total of 14 countries joined the contest, with more than 100 grade school math wizards coming from Bulgaria, Bangladesh, Cyprus, India, Indonesia, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, Taiwan, China, Thailand, and Vietnam. Joelle was part of the Philippine team, which was composed of selected private and public elementary students all over the country who passed rigid screening by the Mathematics Trainers Guild of the Philippines (MTG). Aside from him, two other Makati public high school students have been chosen to represent the country in two separate international Math competitions held in Hong Kong and China. Our students' ability to excel is not just limited to academics. Many have also excelled in artistic pursuits. The Gen. Pio del Pilar National High School, for instance, won the 2007 Cartoon Network Awards of Excellence (CNAE) in Dancing because of the impressive performance of its dance group, ‘Campus Crew'. Moreover, a 12-year old student of the Makati Elementary School, Faith Lagrimas, won the Cartoon Network Award of Excellence in the Wild Card category for her powerful delivery of a poetry piece. At the University of Makati, we have continued to introduce innovations that are attuned to the times. To ensure that our constituents truly benefit from the current boom in the city's BPO industry, we established the Makati Business Process Outsourcing Training Center (BPOTC) to provide them with the appropriate skills that meet the standards of the BPO sector, especially in Makati. “We don't just train you, we get you employed.” This is the BPOTC mission. And true to form, it produced in under a year a total of 98 graduates last August, 50 of whom have been hired immediately by different call center companies in the country, including PeopleSupport, a major industry partner of UMAK under its DUES program. The BPOTC features a simulated call center setting and is considered the best equipped call center training center, even better than some call center companies, with a system that can handle and route as many as 100 calls at any one time. In spite of its extensive program for academic excellence, the city government has not ignored the surge in the demand for technical or skilled workers in the job market both here and abroad. As such, we continued to expand our vocational programs through the Makati Training, Placement, and Livelihood Consortia, or MTPLC. Our MTPLC graduates have been doing well. Recently, all 38 graduates of Electrical Building Wiring, Welding and Fabrication, and Computer Technician who took the trade test or skill assessment examination of the Technical Education and Skills Development Academy, or TESDA, passed. They now hold a Certificate of Competency (COC) that gives them license to work in any TESDA-accredited company here and abroad. But even with all these programs geared for academic excellence and technical competence, the city government also saw the need to go beyond Makati's educational institutions in its goal of developing the youth to become great leaders of the future. Thus, we have carried on with the scholarship program we launched in 2006 for deserving students who wish to pursue higher education at the nation's premier state university – the University of the Philippines. For school year 2007-2008, we granted full scholarship to nine UP students, paying for their tuition and providing them book allowance and monthly stipends. As a UP alumnus myself, I know that our scholars have a greater chance at realizing their dreams, as I have. Superior Place to do Business Perhaps the most important, and of course, the most relevant thrust under Makati BEST for you, my fellow Rotarians, is Superior Place to do Business. With the ongoing implementation of the revised zoning ordinance, the expansion of the city's physical capacity to host increasing numbers of businesses desiring to locate in Makati is well underway. I have also asked the City Council to prioritize the approval of the new Makati Investment and Incentives Code, to spur the growth of sunrise sectors such as the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industries, retirement centers, health facilities, tourism and leisure facilities, among others. I am sure you will agree that the new challenge for this administration is to set the foundations to ensure that our city remains the preferred home of the country's top enterprises and businesses. To do this, we must continue to reform our policy environment to support the business health of our commercial residents. Top Local Government Civil Servants As our way of thanking the investors and taxpayers for their invaluable contributions to our city, we have been doing our best to provide them with quality services that would make transacting with us more convenient and efficient. I am glad to let you know that two frontline offices of the city government recently received “Very Good” ratings from the Civil Service Commission-National Capital Region (CSC-NCR). The results of the CSC's recently concluded Public Service Delivery Audit (PASADA) conducted in 35 agencies based in the NCR showed that the frontline service, Application for Business Permit and Licensing in Makati, handled particularly by the Business Permit Office and the Processing Division, obtained Very Good ratings. Likewise, the Makati PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES OFFICE, OR PESO, outdid its 2006 performance, successfully referring 14,482 applicants who got hired in 2007, which is 33 per cent higher than the previous year. Let me reiterate that we are very grateful to the city's business community for their cooperation and assistance in providing our constituents with gainful employment. Conclusion But while we in the city government of Makati are proud of our well-known and multi-awarded programs in health, education, environment, and social services, we ourselves realize that, as the saying goes, “no man is an island”, which means that Makati does not stand alone. It is no good for us to say that Makati has been continuously moving forward while the country is mired in a culture of killing and corruption, resulting in moral and social decadence. Surely we ourselves have to realize that, as far as the global community is concerned, the negative aspects besetting our country likewise impact negatively on the city of Makati. For indeed, before we are residents of Makati, we are first and foremost all Filipinos – belonging to one country, with common hopes, and ultimately with a common destiny. It was Shakespeare who said: “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” We have to accept that no country was ever ‘born great', and I certainly do not think that the Philippines will be lucky enough to have ‘greatness thrust upon it'. And so it is clearly imperative that our only recourse is to ‘achieve greatness' – as one people, one nation, one force, and one vision. |