Second In Command

Today we were scurried off to the city of Muntinlupa. There we visited the office of Mayor Aldrin San Pedro. It being election season, our scheduled meeting did not pan out, however we did get to have a lengthy discussion with their town administrator Roberto Bunyi. This was the second time I was able to meet with an administrator. The first was when I was in Makati.

As a policy wonk, it is exciting to speak with an administrator, as a Mayor gets to attend the ribbon cutting for a new bridge, it is the administator that will oversee that proper funding is allocated and that all departments are seeing the project through. The job is a daunting one, especially when you are dealing with the infrastructure shortcomings of Mutinlupa.

Unfortunately, as an administrator, he was well equipped to answer questions with a lot of policy specifics. Furthermore, he was not polished enough to get out if some of the more tough questions that were posed. Nonetheless, it was a facinating discussion.

One of the items that interested me was that there is just not continuity when it comes to the development of the Philippines, there is no master plan. The city of Mutinlupa has no requirement to revisit any master plan or general plan for the development if their city. The administrator openly admitted that since politics is so personal and self-serving here that the idea of the next guy following the master plan of the previous Mayor was basically laughable.

Before leaving the Mayor's office, they generously gave us glass bottles with handcrafted boats inside. The bottles are a local artcraft, however these were extra special because they were made by local inmates of the nearby Philippines Federal Prison.

Before we went to our Rotary luncheon, we had a driving tour of a resettlement camp. The area is being developed by the national government but being implemented by local officials. The idea is to remove informal settlers from the riverbank and to a proper living area. People that live along the river often use the river as a toilet and deposit all human and garbage waste there. This is a major cause of pollution for the river. From the more political/realistic end, the government needs tha land to put in wastewster treatment plants and fit beautification.

Overall these experiences were quite exciting. I was very glad to get more administrative and government vocational work. They have plenty of problems and little city income to deal with the problems. However, I must say that although we may complain about the development in the US we should be thankful that local officials do in fact have a series of checks and balances before they can just rezone a whole town. Tomorrow we have a visit with a Congressman. I will report on that later.