All hands on the deck

By Teodoro Sabuga-a Jr.
of Team OKKA .

MAYOR Oscar S. Moreno is not the kind of leader who dictates to his subordinates.

What he does as a leader is to set the direction. It is for the City Council who will formulate sound policies to ensure that the city steers clear to the direction set by the mayor. The local bureaucracy, on the other hand, translates these into tangible public services.

No doubt, Cagayan de Oro City is growing by leaps and bounds. This growth opens to a lot of opportunities and at the same results in higher demand for public service.

Mayor Moreno knows this fully well. The PRIMEHAT platform he laid down when he took the helm of City Hall pretty much covers everything he thought the city needed as it rebuilds and progresses to become the 4^th metropolis of the country. PRIMEHAT stands for (Poverty alleviation, peace and order; Revenue generation; Infrastructure and Investment; Metropolization; Education and Environment; Health and Hospital services and Housing; Agricultural productivity; and Teamwork and Tourism).

From a tower of power, lurking over city, leaving untouched many problems and needs of the people, Mayor Moreno started rebuilding the city. Where we are now from 2013 is a lot better. But Mayor Moreno himself is the first to admit that a lot of things still need to be done; City Hall still has a lot of things to improve.

As affirmation however of the things done right and outcomes of dedicated and committed public service, the city has received accolades and affirmation in the form of awards. It has gained two-peat in the prestigious Galing Pook Award for No Vote Ibot, no more this year; and Rising up from the Mud in 2017. These two entries highlight how, as a leader, Mayor Moreno empowers.

In No Vote Ibot, Piso-Piso program beneficiaries who were used as political pawns, having no security of tenure, but mere scrap of paper called “certificate of occupancy” were emancipated by the issuance of land titles.

In Rising from the Mud, the journey of the city to recovery from Sendong was highlighted. Although full recovery from disasters of that magnitude that swept the city into its knees in December 2011 takes a long time, Rising from the Mud reveals that the city is indeed building back better.

The city has also been acknowledged as a champion of education, having received for two straight years, 2017-2018 the Seal of Good Education Governance from Synergeia Foundation, Department of Education and Smart Communication. It’s claim to fame, building over 500 classrooms that decongested public school and brought schools to far-flung communities.

Ranked No. 5 in the Competitive Challenge of the Department of Tourism, Cagayan de Oro strives to do better. In that same challenge, Cagayan de Oro ranked No. 1 in resiliency. Wow, from hundreds dead in Sendong to zero in typhoon Vinta, which caused comparable floodings.

As social activist Ed dela Torre said, Mayor Moreno did not only steer the city out of Sendong, but also overcome political obstrucionism.

Yes, the mayor did but it was difficult and painful.

The list can go on and on. This just illustrates that Cagayan de Oro has seen the light from gloom and doom of past administration.

With the City Council led by Vice Mayor Kikang Uy, synergy emerged and the people are the ultimate beneficiary of public service never experienced before.

To stay the course, Mayor Moreno needs to have all hands on the deck. The city government needs for champions across governance themes. (to be continued next Monday)

(The author is the City Administrator and concurrent head of the City Social Welfare and Development Office.)

* Editor’s note: Starting this week, Gold Star Daily is reserving space in its opinion pages for the different political groups that want to win government seats in Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental in next year’s elections. Our aim is to raise the level of issue-based and fact-based public discourse on matters of politics and governance while the competing political groups keep with good taste and propriety, things that have been lost and which many people no longer value in other public discussion platforms nowadays.

This should prove to be interesting in that the different groups are expected to convince the public why they deserve to be supported and why the others are less deserving or undeserving. The political writers, of course, will be partisan and will write based on the perspectives of their respective groups.

Space constraints don’t allow us to accommodate all the candidates [there are just too many of them], and writing for themselves may result in legal complications on their part later on given the election rules. And so, we asked the groups to choose their best writers and representatives who are not candidates to articulate their causes, advocacies, concerns and issues of the day once a week.

In Gold Star Daily’s opinion pages, there will be a battle of ideas. All the political groups have agreed and picked a day for their group columns. They have been informed about our newsroom deadline, the assigned days for their group columns, and rules against libel and irrational mudslinging. We wish to publish whatever they write as is, and so, we ask that they carefully think about what they write about, check their facts, reead and proofread their own work before submission.

What and how they choose to make use of the democratic space we are giving them through their representatives is entirely up to them now. At the end of the day, readers will just have to judge for themselves which groups have better ideas, clearer direction and governance agenda or which groups are all trash and really have nothing to offer.