9th Leg Philippine Navy Leadership Forum Series 2009 16 October 2009

PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE
Honorable JESSE M. ROBREDO Mayor, Naga City

Let me begin my presentation by sharing with you some of my experiences. I first became mayor in 1988 anak ako ng EDSA. I worked in a private company; I was in San Miguel Corporation for six years, and we decided to join the march in Ayala, after which ang sabi nila, Put your money where your mouth is. I was invited to go back to Naga and I worked in a government agency: I was director of the Bicol River Basin Development Program office. Given my two years in the program, I felt that I could do something for the city, if given the opportunity. So in 1988 without much knowledge of politics, I decided to run for mayor. Malakas ang loob ko, hindi ko naman alam ang pulitika ang sabi ko, tatakbo ako ng mayor ng Naga. Of course, there were other influences outside of it, pamangkin ako ng gobernador during that time, and he said that this is a contest among political families in the area. Ikaw ang aming manok, may manok din sila, lets retain and in fact expand our control in the jurisdiction. Just to contextualize it, palagay ko mahirap yung mga kwentong hindi particular, yung mga magkatunggali dun sa amin ang pamilya ng Villafuerte, pamilya ng Roco, at pamilya ni Chairman Felipe. I was with the Villafuerte, and my opponent was the brother of Raul Roco. So in 1988 I ran for office with not a lot of experience in politics but I said I am qualified I worked with San Miguel, I had my masters in UP, Im an engineering degree holder puede ako. Little did I know na hindi pala puede na yon. I won with only 23% of the vote, and you know, tama yung sabi ni Dolphy Pano kung manalo ka na? I think the more important challenge is governing. There is that difficult challenge of winning an election, but the more important challenge really is governing. So when I became mayor in 1988, I asked myself will I follow the old paradigms? Ano yung old paradigms? Yung pulitiko magtatayo ng building, ilalagay ang pangalan nya, maglalagay ng tulay. The old paradigm was that we looked at improvement in terms of physical development. I looked at development as more of an institutional way of improving the city, and making everyone part of the improvement of the city. It was a gamble, I must confess; ang sabi ko, if I do not succeed I can go back to San Miguel anyway. Medyo malakas ang loob ko, I was only 29 then, so I had my safety net. So I decided to look at things differently. In 1988 there was no Local Government Code yet; the budget of city hall was only 18 million pesos, and I inherited a one million budgetary deficit. One million during that time was a lot of money. Ngayon ang budget namin is almost half a billion pesos. During that time, one million was too large a deficit that we decided to defer payment of our bills. Mahirap yung umpisa But let me just go back to that paradigm, ang sabi ko noon Ill see it differently. And the first question was, what were the symbols of bad governance in the city? Alam mo, ang palagay ko yung nanalo ako ng 23% of the vote, ang sabi ng mga tao e, pamangkin lang kasi ni governor kaya yan sya nandyan. Antayin natin ang

| The Philippine Navy Leadership Forum Series 2009

susunod na halalan, pag hindi yan umayos tatanggalin natin. But I think they gave me the benefit of the doubt, so I said lets address the symbols of bad governance in the city. Ano ang symbols ng bad governance? Simple lang jueteng. Alam ng tao kapag jueteng kasama jan si mayor, kasama si hepe. Kahit tanggihan nila yan araw-araw, pag nandyan yan, may pagduda ang mga mamamayan na kasali si mayor, kasali si hepe. So I called the chief and said, lets put a stop to gambling in the city para naman maniwala ang tao na talaga naming tayo ay seryoso. The other symbol in our city were the night clubs and joints. We decided to run after the joints, I closed down the joints, and I had 18 court cases. But I think the upside of it ang sabi ng tao, baka puede natin subukan at paniwalaan sya. And we addressed the more difficult problems of governance in the city we decided to move out the bus terminals from the commercial district. The reason for that was it constricted development in the city. I was telling Admiral Golez that when we moved out the bus terminals we now have Shoemart in Naga, because of the new spaces that were created. But I guess the first part really was confidence-building. In all organizations the most important element is building trust. When people trust you, they will forgive you for your sins. When people do trust you, they will give you the benefit of the doubt. When people do not trust you, even if youre correct, even if youre right, they will not believe you. So in our case, we said subukan po natin makuha muli ang tiwala ng tao. I only had 23% of the vote, three members of the council and the vice mayor, yung pito kalaban namin. Ang sa pulitika naman, kapag magkakalaban tayo lahat ng gusto mo ayaw ko, lahat ng gusto ko ayaw mo and we had gridlock. And then I said, lets try to see what processes we will follow in the governance of the city. The mantra in Naga has been the governance process is equally important as the outcomes. Of course, if we do not have the outcomes the processes are irrelevant. But if you would like to make the outcomes sustainable, its important that you build stakeholdership. And the only way to build stakeholdership is to engage the constituency. The only way to engage the constituency is to give them participation. Kaya ang ginawa ko nung umpisainorganize muna namin lahat, and if youre familiar with Naga, all the legal fronts of the left are in the city; lahat ng kaliwa nandoon. Kasama yan sa aking constituency. I said if I do not engage with them I will not be able to succeed in the long run inasmuch as they will put in blocks along the way all the time. So I said, o sige mag-moderate na kayo, mag-usap tayo sa lamesa, sama kayo sa amin, organize tayo, pakinggan namin kayo and in fact now, I can tell you that the left has been marginalized in Naga. The moderate left has been mainstreamed, the extreme left is not participating, and we dont care really they cannot kill the development in the city. We decided to organize everyone, to give them a stake. So my first term really was building organizations and building institutions, securing trust we didnt have a lot of money. Of course, if we contextualize it from the point of view of politics, mananalo kaya uli ako? Ang lahat ng ito, wala namang saysay kung hindi ka mananalo. In 1992 this experiment demonstrated that people power really matters. In 1992 when I ran for re-election nagkampi na yung Villafuerte at Roco. Nagsama na sila kay Mitra, sumama ako sa Ramos; lahat ng pulitiko dun nagsama na sila kay Mitra, wala kay Ramos. Ang sabi nila, wala nang panalo yan. Kasi yung patron nya nung nauna, iniwanan pa sya. We parted ways as a matter of principle on our part we decided to seek a different path in governing the city. In 1992, yung kalaban ko, yung kapatid na ni Congressman Villafuerte. Mga kamag-

| The Philippine Navy Leadership Forum Series 2009

anak ko yon eat ang kakampi nila si Raul Roco and several others. Youll be surprised, in my 1992 re-election, I got 80% of the vote, and since then up to now we have been voted straight into office mayor, vice mayor, lahat ng konsehal amin pati SK at ABC labing-pitong taon na ngayon. The reason Im saying this is that big people say that you cannot combine good governance with success in the political arena. In our case we have combined success in the political arena in terms of a new governance process, a new type of governance. So we turned around the city what was more important as far as we were concerned is that we secured the trust of our constituency, invest in the capacity of the bureaucracy, invest in the capacity of the citizen. Then once you have the capacity, you build trust, then you gain partners. In Naga we say that if there is anyone who can do it better than city hall, let them do it. A lot of activities in Naga are done by our private sector partners. And we said lets improve and enhance people participation in Naga. Of course, all of these are motherhoods, so lets go down to the details. When I took over the city, Naga was a typical Philippine city we had all the problems, these are the same problems that we. All of us are participants in the PGS of Dr. Jesus Estanislao participation is important, setting goals is important; in our case we are very fond of symbols. I think communication is very important component in service delivery. These are the symbols of what Naga should be. This is the governance model that we follow: actually progressive perspective is leadership, but we do not like to say its leadership we say its more of a framework, and a belief rather than anything. Our model is the bureaucracy leadership, our partners, and our constituency and the people as a whole. Leadership must demonstrate that we do not ask of you what we are not willing to do ourselves. And we also say you cannot give what you do not have. Ill you a practical examplewhen we had Reming, Ondoy, Pepeng etcall the barangays captains are required to be on the road. Lahat kami nasa kalsada. Kami ang huling uuwi, kapag me ganitong mangyayari sa lugar. And when you require people to participate and when you recognize people, to do something for themselves, it simply means that leadership must also be willing to do it. The reason that this is important is that this is the most important element in building trust as far as the constituents are concerned. You cannot have partners if people do not trust you. You cannot build stakeholdership if people do not trust you. The magical and instrumental qualities of it, parati kong sinasabi, I have a bit of the magical, I have more of the instrumental qualities of it. Pinagmamasipagan mo yung instrumental, pero yung charisma hindi mo makukuha yan kung wala ka, so you would just have to compensate. Ang paniniwala namin, kailangan yung marunong at pinaniniwalaan. Pangalawa. If there is anyone who can do it better than city hall, then let them do it. Two reasons, one is it multiplies the capacity of the government, second is there are specialized partners better than you. Let me just give you an example we have the lowest malnutrition rate in the country not because of the city hall but because of the rotary club of doctors and med reps, and the Camarines Sur Medical Society. They do it year in and year out. In fact without them we would not be able to achieve our number. Thats true with the

| The Philippine Navy Leadership Forum Series 2009

mentally handicapped in the city. It is run by the parents of the handicapped children. For a long time, handicapped children in Naga go to school in Manila for handicapped children. A neurologist whose daughter is autistic paid me a visit, told me you know Mayor, you just give me a building and P300,000 a year and Ill run the school and the school has been operating in the last 15 years. In fact, it branched out of the city. There will always be somebody who could complement the capacities of the city government. There are partners who trust the city government. You know when we did the development of CPD 2 where Shoemart is right now, one developer said, You know Mayor, just set up the bus terminals in my property, Ill give you 3 hectares. It may be good deal for us. The property is worth P300.00 per square meter. But you know the guy is no philanthropist he is doing it because he wants to improve the land value of his property. So he said Ill give you 3 hectares, fine you give me the three hectares, so now I have Shoemart, I have the bus terminal, I have full receipt of the donated land. We built the bypass road, around 4.4 km, in partnership with the FF Cruz. And again FF Cruz is no philanthropist; FF Cruz is a businessman. He said You know Mayor, if you just acquire the rights to that property, Ill buy that property, Ill build the road, Ill pave it, and he spent around close to a hundred million, Ill donate the road to you and outside of that, Ill give you 5 hectares (when he said that I said hell give it to the city government and not to me). Wow, you might say, wow, FF Cruz is a philanthropist, no he is not a philanthropist, he has a hundred hectares of property inside his estate, he needs the police power of the government to get the right of way, so he spent 5 million for the property, he spent a hundred million, he donated the 5 hectares to us, we have the new bypass road, it improved traffic in the city, you know it is a mutually beneficial partnership. What Im trying to say is that this paradigm of trying to make use of private resources in promoting public good is at the core of our strategy. Then the third one is how to experiment on participatory government. We have one of the best urban poor programs in the country not because of the city hall but because of a non-government organization. Handling the problem of the settlers is not simply providing them with a place to transfer or providing them space but also providing them an organization that will handle them. You know this concept of participation is a very valued word, and the salient part is how to operationalize it. Let me just go back to my example so you could better appreciate it. When Osmea decided to run for Vice President in 1992, he asked his wife to run for governor in Cebu. Prior to that, Lito decided to float bands he called it the Cebu bonds. Lito Osmea ran for Vice President, he lost; his wife ran for governor, she lost. Governor dela Serna won. And Governor dela Serna said I will not honor the Cebu bonds of Lito Osmea. You know, I must say that these are the obligations of the government that must be honored. I say to myself, is there a way to prevent this? You know the city government tells you, aside from recall- you are very familiar with the provision of recall. Pag may nag aaway, i-recall natin si Panlilio, i-recall natin si Pedro Pag nag-aaway sa politika parati nating naririnig ang recall. But there is another provision that is more developmental it is called referendum. When we decided to accept the 3-hectare donation to us for the central business district, we decided to call for a referendum and asked the people to vote whether first of all they would authorize the government to establish this commercial business district and second if they would authorize the government to borrow money for this commercial district and no. 3 whether they would like to color

| The Philippine Navy Leadership Forum Series 2009

code the tricycle. People went to the polling station and they voted direct peoples participation in deciding what to do as far as the long-term programs of the city are concerned. Why is referendum important? Let me contextualize that a bit. During that time straight na kami noon sa city hall Mayor, Vice Mayor, city council, sa amin, yung SK amin, yung ABC sa amin, wala na kaming oposisyon. But then I told everyone mayors come and go, elected officials come and go, if there is anything permanent in this locality, it is the voter. And if in fact we incur liabilities after our term, it is important that we ask them, whether the people are willing to include these liabilities. Pinagbotohan yung sa amin and if I recall it right, 60% of the voters voted yes for the commercial business district, 57% voted yes that we borrow money for the commercial district. In fact, the question is Will you authorize us to float bonds? The 3rd one, medyo controversial yun 51% voted yes that we color code our tricycles. 51-49. Palagay ko maraming bumoto sa referendum, dahil nangampanya yung mga tricycle driver wag kayong papayag na icocolor code kami. But this is a healthy exercise in democracy. So the referendum allows us to ask the people in the city kung ano talaga ang ninanais nila? So we did that August 1993. Then we decided to mainstream the moderate left. We started with what you call the NGO-PO council. Ibig sabihin confidence building, organize kayo, harapharap tayo. Then we decided to formalize it in 1995. We passed a local law that compels the city to allow them to engage with us. Let me just be very, very specific. First of all the empowerment law tells us that there is in Naga City a peoples council that is composed of representatives of all NGOs in the city and they are empowered to name their representative in everything that the city hall does. And they are empowered to name their representatives in all the committees of the city council where they are part of the quorum, they can vote, they can debate with the elected officials of the city. Ang ibig sabihin, hindi namin siya pinaupo lang, binigyan namin sya ng kapangyarihan. I think this is the essence of real democracy. Ang aming paniwala , hindi lahat ng hinahalal marunong, matino, hindi naman lahat ng di nahahalal ay masama. And I think to achieve a healthy balance on how we govern the city, it is important that we give them a voice. The principle behind this is simply this when you share power with the constituency, they return it back to you. Ang iba ang paniwala kapag ibinigay sa akin ang kapangyarihan, ibig sabihin ako na lang. Ang prinsipyo namin sa Naga kapag binigay mo yung kapangyarihan sa akin, ibabalik ko sayo kasi ang paniwala ko ibabalik mo rin yan sa akin. When people ask me pano po nangyari na anim na halalan, binobotohan kayo straight Mayor, vice mayor, konsehal, lahat ikaw, pagkatapos yung ABC ikaw, yung SK ikaw pa rin. I said the question is very easy to answer, pag ikaw botante sa Naga tatanungin kita, sinong ihahalal mo? Yung mga taong pag hinalal mo bibigyan ka pa rin ng kapangyarihan, o yung taong pag hinalal mo, kakalimutan ka na magkita na lang kayo sa susunod na halalan. So when I say that by sharing power and giving back to them and they are giving it back to you, I think essentially you connect now governance and politics. By the way, this is not unique to us. Infanta (Quezon) has their own peoples council; Candelaria has its own peoples council; and lately Quezon City just passed the same ordinance allowing NGOs in the affairs on how they govern city hall. Probably youll say, Mayor that is an important idea and process but does that work? Ill give you an example you know in all my years as mayor of the city, ang sa akin parati ay yung buwis, pag umupo ako yung unang taon ko parati tataas ang

| The Philippine Navy Leadership Forum Series 2009

buwis sa amin, normal yun. Kasi nasa batas every three years you have to revise values of properties. In effect raise property taxes. In the last two terms that I had been raising property taxes, you know the first time that we did it, the chamber passed a resolution and said city hall go ahead raise property taxes. Normally, if there is any group that will oppose raising property taxes, its the chamber of commerce. In our case, the chamber said, city hall, go ahead raise property taxes. Last year, we were a part of the LAMP project of AUSAID. The LAMP project required to pass a schedule of new market value. Five (5) cities were chosen as pilot of AUSAID, and one important milestone was that you need to pass an ordinance for the new property valuation of the city. Of the 5 chosen pilot sites, only Naga was able to pass it. Ibig sabihin kami lang ang nakapasa, naitataas namin ang buwis effectively. And the chamber in the city and the Naga City peoples council passed a resolution saying city hall, go ahead approve the new schedule of city values. What am I trying to say to you? Palagay ko ang mga mamamayan, kapag napapabuti sila they would be willing to share the obligation. May isang mindset na ang engagement ng isang tao sa kanya mo ipapaalam, bigay, bigay, bigay. You know there is no free land in our city. Lahat ng bagay dun sa amin lahat binabayaran, yung lupa dun binabayaran, sinisingil namin sila kasi dapat maunawaan nila na para umunlad ang lugar, dapat may mga obligasyon na tayo ay gagampanan. And in fact, we say if you want to build infrastructure in the city somebody must pay. In Naga, 90 % of the infrastructures are fully paid for. I think if you measure infrastructure we have the highest density in Bicol, we have the best MDG numbers in Bicol, dahil hindi lahat binibigay, dahil yung tao nag-aassume siya ng responsibility. Ill give you an example. Palagay ko pag nasa munisipyo, taasan mo ang rental sa palengke, sasabihin nila hindi ka na bobotohan. Ganun naman yun, lagi nilang tinatakot si Mayor. Sasabihin nila, pag tinaasan mo ang upa sa palengke, di ka na naming bobotohin, matatalo ka. You know two years ago, we raised the market rental at the market by 200% but before doing that, ang sabi namin sa tagapalengke, halika upo tayo sa lamesa. Bubuksan ko ang libro ng palengke, tingnan mo magkano ang iyong kinita, magkano ang gastos natin. Ano ang nais mong gawin? Magkano ang pera nating kailangan? kinwenta nila, nandun yung president ng palengke nandun yung tresurero, nandun yung peoples council and they computed ang resulta they need to raise market rental by 200% so the federation of market vendors passed a resolution saying city hall go ahead raise the market rental by 200% but do it in 2 tranches in two years. Again sa palagay ko kung hindi siya kasama sa pamamahala namen, di siya papayag. Pero dahil kasama siya sa pamamahala namin, alam niya hindi naman para samin yung ginagawa. You know I left city hall in 1998; I took a sabbatical. Balik ako sa city hall So the challenge is how I engage with the residents of the city. I have a mechanism to engage the organized groups, we have the peoples empowerment pano ko kausapin yung nasa bahay kung wala namang pakialam sa polisiya, ang nais lang niya yung ilaw niya umiilaw, yung basura niya kinukulekta, ang nais niya lang eh serbisyo. So I said maybe we should promote information openness in Naga. The only way to engage constructively with the citizenry is if they are informed. Pag alam niya pwede mo siyang kausapin, pag di niya alam, wala naman kayong paguusapan.

| The Philippine Navy Leadership Forum Series 2009

So we passed another law, we call it the I-governance in the city. The reason why he is not in governance it is not the technology. I-governance stands for information openness, Inclusive governance, interactive engagement and innovative management. Again those are motherhoods, so how do you operationalize it? Two things first of all in 2001, we decided to have a citizens charter. The citizens charter is a list of all the things that we need to do for the residents of the city. It tells you response time, it tells you who is responsible, it tells you whats happening in city hall, it tells you that you can make your government accountable. In 2001, napasa na ang alta, in 2007, at nirerequire na kaming gumawa nyan. We are now in the third edition. And there is a local law that requires us to do this every three years. It seeks transparency, and allows the city hall to engage. Let me just give you an example. The national building code tells you that I can give you building permit in 15 days. May white book, before the orange book tells you that Ill do the building permit in 7 days. Nung ilabas namin ang white book, ang sabi ng mga negosyante, Mayor ang tagal tagal naman ng 7 days. Ang sabi ko sa kanila, yung building code 15 days, ito nga 7 days. pakita ko sayo bakit. Gawa din siya ng sarili niyang process, meron din siyang response time, standards. And the chamber of businessmen said, mayor you can do it in three days. So the orange book tells you, that I can give you building permit in 3 days. Parati kong binibigay ang shoemart. Shoemart 4 days kasi napakadami ng requirement. But I think the charter makes the government accountable. The charter allows the people to trust the government because now they can see how the government works, how much money you need to pay for the transaction and who is responsible at ito may batas sa amin. Before the ALTA law may batas. The other component of the I-governance is that we need to have an updated website for city hall. Lahat ng LGU may website, pero sa website ko lahat pera ko nakalagay sa website. Ibig sabihin, the proposed budget of the city is posted in my website. So anyone who is interested can take a look at it. The budget of city hall is just posted downstairs. Alam niyo, nadiskubre namin pag pinamimigay ninyo, wala namin pumapansin pag yan pala tinatago mo, hinahanap. You know I keep telling everybody if you want to know how I spend the money, everybody is welcome to see the website downstairs. In fact, that website of ours, tells you Im required to report every quarter how much money we collected, how much money we spent. Just exaggerating, if you want to know how much is the paracetamol, you can see it in the website. Why is this important? It is important because it continues to build trust in the government. Why is it important, because if you want people to assume responsibility, they need to be properly informed. When Im raising taxes I need to explain to them why Im raising taxes, where the taxes are going, and this is my way of telling that as far as you are concerned Im using your money prudently. Tingnan natin ang sa gamut, maraming kalokohan dyan sa gamut eh. Pag binigay ko ang presyo ng paracetamol disisyete centimo, makikita yan ng supplier. Yung supplier, magbibisness sa city hall. Alam nya pag bid nya piso, alam niya di na sya mananalo at alam ko na tinitingnan nya yun. At kung gusto kong gumawa ng kalokohan, dapat disisyete lang, kasi kung gumawa ako ng piso, alam ng lahat. In providing information to everyone, in effect youre making yourself toe the line. Kaya ang sabi namin ang pinakamahalaga sa lahat ng ito ay inpormasyon.

| The Philippine Navy Leadership Forum Series 2009

So what Im saying, given that, let me just conclude, at the end of the day, and Ill go back to what I said, officials come and go. If there is anything permanent in the locality, its the citizens, and all of us make sure that all of these things are institutionalized. We need to invest in engaging, we need to invest in the citizens. If the citizens are engaged, if the citizens are well informed, then they will make the right choices. You know, Ive been asked many times, Mayor, paano kung wala ka na? Ill be out, this my sixth and final term as mayor of Naga. At pag tinatanong ako, paano Mayor pag wala ka na? Ang sagot ko you know its like crossing a river. We cross the river, 80% of the way, its easier to move ahead than turn back. When people already have the measures, standards on what kind of governance they have, from time to time they will make the wrong choices, but certainly in time, theyll make the right choices again. Of course, you might say, Mayor mahusay ang proseso, but what are the outcomes. I think weve done well, not only because we are process-oriented, but were also outcome-oriented. Allow me to brag a little, we are the most awarded local government unit in the Philippines compared to all of the outstanding LGUs in the Philippines. Naga City is the most awarded LGU in the Philippines. We have a good number as far as education, health, etc is concerned. So let me say, in conclusion, that the governance prose is equally important as the outcome. And the outcome in Naga City has demonstrated that good governance works. Thank you very much and good day everyone.

| The Philippine Navy Leadership Forum Series 2009