“Political Will is Not Political Suicide.”
Bayani Fernando
Former Marikina Mayor
Present Chairman of Metro Manila Development Authority
Among my favorite quotes of BF was this one on Political Will for Government Officials. It is a known fact that people in government fear pursuing programs that may provoke or offend people for fear of not being voted the next election thereby not resolving the more controversial and important issues of the community and its people.
In Marikina, marikeños have come to realize that the effectiveness of BF’s leadership lie greatly on his ability to push his political will amidst the anger and possibility of not winning his next term. In one of his speeches, he said:
“People tend to look at government as rather weak and ineffective. This is a kind of minset that we have changed in Marikina, but it took us some doing to be able to do so.”
I was in college when Marikina began its transformation and I still awe today at the wonders this man has created for our town. My classmates then at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) would tease me about living in the “Rape and Massacre Capital of the Philippines” as a result of the media hype on the occurence of rape and massacre incidents in the city.
BF was able to obliterate all these depressing notion about Marikina by establishing first the limits of the freedom and responsibilities to society of every residents. He was firm in his decisions and would not yield to threats and bribery. He was able to instill discipline in the mind of every Marikeños and proved that it was not political suicide to be a working and tough government official. the ultimate proof of this — he still won the next election… and the next… and he was appointed as Chairman of MMDA after his term as our Mayor.
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