Thursday, August 5, 2010

The 1st Hundred Days in Governance…Results Matter.

The first 100 days in the term of office of a public official is believed to be one of the most crucial. It is within this phase that people will be able to see the general direction that they want to pursue as well as the their way of handling the government. If a public official performs good on his first 100 days then most likely people will support him and look up to a brighter tomorrow. So, like P. Noy who expressed his vision, plans and sentiments through his SONA, Mayor Mike Rama delivered his advocacy, platform and ideas before members of NGO, LGU, Youth sector and Cebuanos in today's event.

Team work, unity, cooperation. These would be the best words sum up all of Mayor Rama's vision for the city. He emphasized the importance of the role of society in allowing the government to reach its goals. This is very clear on his branding  "Together, we make things happen". Mayor Rama pointed out that there is a lot of issues to be solved, and if we leave it all to the government for solution then it would be very difficult. He showed pictures of various projects which according to him was made possible through the efforts of the private sector. Banking on this, he then formulated his spider web approached plan. In the spider web approached plan, the government would try to gather information on the needs of society then create general ideas as to how to solve these needs. Once these ideas are generated the government will then pass this to the next level which would be composed of the different LGU's. The LGU's will then try to dig deeper with these issues and inline with the general solution propose ideas and seek the assistance of various NGO. This way the burden is not solely shouldered by the government but is spread to allow members of the society to directly act on it.

Mayor Rama also presented his developmental framework which is composed of the beautification of the SRP and and our coastal areas, the revitalization of the downtown, the progressiveness of the uptown and balance between development and environment in the upland. In line with this his 7 pillars are mostly on the improvement of the cleanliness and beautification of the city.

Generally, Mayor Rama's plans are good. It would allow us to have a cleaner and more participative Cebu. If you look at it closer however, you might be able to ask this same question that I had in mind, which is also thought of by the great Juan Mercado, all these cleanliness and beautification acts, are these really the main problems of Cebu? Mayor Rama did not present his plans on how he with the help of us solve the issue on the water problem in Cebu, or the prostitution in Cebu. He also did not present plans or updates on the problem of education, poverty and health.

I'm not quite sure of the specific data but based on experience and what is displayed in our surroundings, these are the more pressing issues that we as Cebuanos are facing. I'm also not quite sure if Mayor Rama just forgot to show his plans for these issues or something but at least he still has around 60 days left in his first 100 days. Hopefully he will be able to look into these issues and together with the people, provide solutions and act on it.

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