Inclusive leadership
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2019 16:40:48 +0000
Today, there is awareness on how big city mayors are governing. And it is a universal thing. The fact that the United States, whose politics is the politics outside of ours that is closely followed by Filipinos, has a city mayor — South Bend’s Pete Buttigieg — as a top-tier Democratic presidential aspirant adds to the local and overseas interest in city politics.
The other fact that former New City mayor Michael Bloomberg, the media technology billionaire, is about to enter the same Democratic primary (after the current mayor’s failed run) is also helping stir up the interest in big cities and their mayors.
Of course, never at any point in our political history is the interest and focus on big city mayors more intense than now. Mass media have a literal tracker that documents how our big city mayors elected in the midterm elections this year have been performing.
Remember that we have a former big-city mayor as president, straight to Malacañang from the Davao City Hall. Former president Joseph “Erap” Estrada, though a former big-town mayor, took a more conventional route to the presidency.
The tracker has yet to venture into the evaluation side. Right now, the tracker just lists down the specific actions and policies being carried out by the big city mayors. The coverage of the big city mayors is, on the balance, positive.
Most of the big city mayors, if you read the tracker, are well meaning and have been trying to do their best and live up to the expectations. Some of the mayoral actions border on hype and gimmickry, hype and gimmickry that is not all apparent to the non-discerning. If you are discerning enough, you can see through the lack of seriousness and depth of the actions and policies. Behind the flash, nothing — just made-for-TV mayoral initiatives. But there is one exception, a young mayor serious about governance.
In the area of inclusive and humane leadership, one low-key mayor stands out, Pasig City Mayor Victor Ma. Regis “Vico” Sotto. People with callused hands, people that are part of the sectors rendered invisible by the usual political leadership, people on the “laylayan” who have been left out of government policies are starting to take notice of the inclusive of the young mayor. He is mayor to both the poohbahs and the peons.
Of course, the views of peons like us do not even count. Ours is a society stricken with billionaire-worship. At the country’s City Halls, priority is given to “investments.” But just the same, we have to state our sense of big city mayors. The one with the predisposition to inclusive leadership is the young Mayor Sotto. Helping the exploited workers, as he did with the strike-bound workers of the Regent Foods Corp. (RFC), was something out of the Sermon on the Mount.
Declaring that the striking workers detained after a clash with security personnel of the RFC were not criminals, Mayor Sotto helped the 23 workers post bail and get provisional liberty. And he had an appeal to RFC to drop the charges against the workers.
“They (the RFC 23) are just fighting for what they believe to be just, “ he told the RFC management.
RFC has not budged from the usual stand of capital. No, we will not drop the charges. More, we are leaving Pasig City. The hard-line stand and the threat of moving out are by now quite familiar. They have been invoked by capital since time immemorial.
Mayor Sotto is being blasted for supposedly having little faith in the justice system. Ok, I will pose this question. What kind of justice system does strike-bound workers get in this sad country of ours? If you read the Trade Union International report on the conditions of the Filipino workingman, you will weep. The country is one of the 10 worst countries for workers. Basic rights, such as the right to organize, to strike, to find redress for their many grievances are non-existent.
In the workers versus capital narrative, who always win? A justice system that has declared the Marcos loot non-existent is the kind of justice system that now prevails in the country.
“When my constituents are deprived of liberty as they fight for their rights as workers, I cannot sit around and do nothing,” the young Sotto said.
The support for the detained RFC workers was not the first time Mayor Sotto took the side of strike-bound workers. The strike-bound workers of a Zagu maker got support from the mayor. It was not a knee-jerk, always-on-the-side of the workers thing. The young Sotto first looked into the reasons for the strike, the specific wage, benefits and working conditions issues that usually push workers into the edge and declare a strike. He found the workers’ strike justified. Hence, the support.
The voiceless first took notice of the Pasig mayor after his declaration that he is a public servant and not a celebrity. Shunning hoopla is a sign of restraint, something which politicians, glory seeking, vain and ego-driven, are not capable of reining in. Then, he said his views on the metro traffic: rein in the cars and allow the mass carriers to run the roads.
Then, he supported the strike-bound workers.
Something in the young mayor tells us, the working class, that he has not only read the Sermon on the Mount. He has internalized the words in the greatest speech ever written.