The 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service

BIOGRAPHY of Jesse Robredo

His baptismal name came from the Bible, and his family name was borrowed from the priest who had baptized his grandfather. Jesse M. Robredo is a second-generation Chinese Filipino. Born in Naga City on May 27, 1958, he is the third of five children, two sons and three daughters, of Jose Chan Robredo, Sr. and Marcelina Manalastas.

Robredo's paternal grandfather was a full-blooded Chinese named Lim Pay Co who arrived in the Philippines at the turn of the twentieth century. Among Chinese immigrants who became Christians, it was the custom to adopt the name of their godparents at baptism. Lim Pay Co instead chose the name of the priest who baptized him; thus, Juan Lim Robredo. Jesse's father acquired the middle name Chan from his mother; it was her maiden surname.

Marcelina Manalastas, unlike her husband, was not originally from Naga. She was from the fishing town of Navotas in the province of Rizal. She moved to Naga in the early 1950s to work in a grocery store owned by her relatives. She completed only an elementary education and learned to read English-language newspapers from her husband, who had finished high school. Jose was not the typical businessman who was concerned only with numbers and profits: he spoke English well, and loved books and literature. He once had an article published in the Philippines Free Press, the most respected national weekly magazine at the time.

Jose spoke the Fukien dialect, but only to the other Chinese in the community. His children understood a little Fukien, but spoke Tagalog, their mother's language, at home. Unlike many other Chinese Filipinos, Jose preferred to send his children to Filipino Catholic schools rather than to Chinese schools because he wanted them to be integrated into the Filipino community.

In the early years of their marriage, Jose Robredo owned a timber concession. His company, Timber Wealth, supplied lumber to a number of hardware and lumber stores in Naga. Jesse says timber concessionaires had to contend with foresters and forest guards whose rules "were designed in such a way that they were difficult to comply with." Rather than have to "wheel and deal" in order to keep his business, Robredo's father decided to chose up shop. Marcelina, on the other hand, was an enterprising woman who bought and sold fish and other seafood in partnership with her sister Felisa, whose base was the sprawling Divisoria market in Manila.

In 1962, Marcelina convinced Jose to go into the trawling business so that she would no longer have to deal with trawl operators. Jose agreed. Still fascinated with the word wealth, he christened his new enterprise Fishing Wealth.

As a result of retinitis pigmentosa (night blindness), however, Jose was gradually going blind. At thirty-nine, he completely lost his eyesight. Jesse was only four years old at the time but he remembers that what might have been a tragedy became, instead, a source of motivation for his father and an inspiration to the rest of his family. Years later, Jesse's older brother also fell victim to the disease.

There being no marine engineers or architects at the time, Jose set about designing his own trawlers. His children and nephews and nieces served as his eyes. He asked them to read aloud from instruction manuals while he visualized the layout of fishing trawler. He himself oversaw the business. He even repaired his boat engines himself. He also taught himself to move around unaided, and to help out in the kitchen and with the laundry when necessary.

The enterprise proved true to its name. With their earnings, the Robredos sent all their children to private schools in Naga. But in the 1970s, trawl fishing faced new regulations. For example, trawl fishing was allowed only at depths of seven fathoms; fishermen needed bigger boats if they were to operate profitably and at the same time comply with the rules. The cheaper boats available were second-hand vessels from Japan. Jose could not afford to acquire the bigger boats, and so decided it was time to close shop again. He was a peaceable man who did not wish to break the law, and a sensible entrepreneur who would not risk pouring all his earnings and even his savings into the business. Besides, he told his family, they already had as much as their modest lifestyle required and could not ask for more. They had become moderately prosperous and could afford to keep two, sometimes three, servants and a driver as well. Marcelina, meanwhile, went into rice and copra trading. (Jose's relatives owned a copra-oil mill near Naga.)

Home to the Robredos was the old house of Jose's parents in the family compound, where his sister also had her own place. The compound was situated near the commercial district as well as a slum area. As a boy, Robredo became streetwise and, having made friends with children from both sides of the tracks, got to know how both the relatively well-to-do and the very poor lived. Despite his blindness, Jose was the family disciplinarian but his children always understood why he was very strict with them. To this day, out of respect for his father, Robredo neither smokes nor drinks, and has never tried. Jose also demanded much from his children in terms of academic performance. He valued education and promoted a competitive spirit among the children. Being number two in class wasn't good enough for him; his children had to be number one. "There is no place for second honor, only first honor," Jesse Robredo remembers him saying.

From both his parents Robredo learned the virtues of caring for others and frugality and the value of a modest lifestyle. From his father in particular he learned that protecting the integrity and honor of one's family is of highest importance, and the children were expected to contribute their share in doing that. Marcelina, for her part, was a devout Catholic who instilled the precepts of her faith in her children. She took them to Mass every Sunday, and although Jose went along only on Christmas Day, he, too, says Robredo, was a religious man who prayed every day and encouraged his children to do the same.

Robredo began his formal education at Naga Parochial School, a private Catholic school with fewer than one thousand boys located behind the cathedral and run by the archdiocese. The language of instruction was English, and Robredo recalls that although he and his siblings did their homework on their own, they would ask their father to help them with their English compositions.

If there was one lesson elementary school taught Robredo, it was that "sometimes your best is not enough." Naga Parochial School had established a record for winning Bicol's annual province-wide chess tournament and Jesse's own brother had been among its champion competitors. When his turn came to represent his school, however, Jesse garnered only second place. (He was nevertheless his school chess champion in both elementary and high school.)

The grade school teacher Robredo remembers most is one who encouraged students to outdo themselves. Mrs. Carmen Ojeda taught mathematics and was like a second mother to him. She often told him that she hoped he would someday make a name for himself. Years later, when he was mulling a run for the mayorship of Naga, Robredo visited her and asked her what she thought of his chances. She replied that she wasn't sure, but that she would be glad to help him.

In 1970 Robredo entered high school at Ateneo de Naga. The only Catholic high school for boys in the city, it is run by the Society of Jesus and is therefore highly regarded for its emphasis on personal discipline and academic excellence. Ateneo was not the small, intimate school that Naga Parochial was; it drew students from other provinces and from higher socio-economic classes. To the young Robredo, however, Ateneo offered much more; it was training him for the future, particularly for a life of involvement. "At Ateneo," he says, "I learned to deal with people and I learned to deal with the external environment." But it was not until after he had left Ateneo that he began to appreciate fully its motto of shaping "men and women for others."

At Ateneo de Naga Robredo met two Jesuit priests who made a tremendous impression on him. One was Fr. Jack Phelan, his father confessor. The other was Fr. James O'Brien, a tall and lanky Irish American Jesuit who spent his years in Bicol deepening the people's love for their region by making them aware of the richness of its culture. Father O'Brien spoke Bicol fluently, and in his talks with Bicolanos he tirelessly encouraged them to "love Bicol, think Bicol, learn Bicol."

Among Ateneo's lay teachers, Robredo remembers English teacher Greg Abonal for having taught not only English but, more important, the art of living. How clearly Robredo recalls Mr. Abonal's constant reminders: "the process is more important than what you learn"; "grades, while important, are not your life"; "faith is important, as is honesty, and exams are a means not only to test what you've learned but to test your character as well."

Robredo entered high school during a period of emerging political turbulence in Philippine history. The communist New People's Army was gaining ground against the government of President Ferdinand Marcos and drawing sympathizers even among the students at Ateneo de Naga. In September 1972, when Robredo was in the middle of high school, Marcos declared martial law. Robredo remembers the day the Prefect of Discipline called all the students to an assembly and warned them against getting involved in anti-government activities, lest they expose the school to the risk of closure.

Although Robredo himself was never drawn to activism, he was neither ignorant of, nor indifferent to, political issues. His father was a sympathizer of the Liberal Party, which at the time was the opposition party, and openly expressed a dislike for martial law. Jose Robredo had always encouraged his children to speak their minds and, at mealtimes when everyone was required to be present, he encouraged lively discussions including politics.

Like other children of well-to-do provincial families, Robredo was sent to Manila for his college education. Filipino parents believe that their children will have better career opportunities if they have diplomas from the best-known schools in Manila. Robredo wanted to be an engineer. Like his father, he excelled in science and math. He applied and was accepted at the state-run University of the Philippines in Los Banos, for its agricultural engineering course, but he chose to enter De La Salle University, which was widely acknowledged to have the best engineering school. His older brother and sister were already enrolled in Manila schools by then.
Robredo entered De La Salle in 1974. He was 16 years old. He lived with his aunt, Juanita Hao Chin, his father's sister, and her husband, Vicente, during most of his six years of college. He had for a roommate his cousin, Pablito Hao Chin, who graduated a year earlier than he from the University of the Philippines. Pablito was a voracious reader and deep thinker; he engaged Robredo in spirited nightly discussions on everything from politics to management issues. Robredo still remembers and values them.

It was the intellectual challenge Robredo liked most about De La Salle. He also found time for sports and played basketball with the engineering school's intramural team. But he shunned parties and nights out with his peers, although he allowed himself an occasional movie. He preferred to stay home to study or to watch television.

Robredo's hard work paid off. Six years later, he graduated with two bachelor of science degrees, one in mechanical engineering and another in industrial management engineering. He had hoped to take over the family business after graduation but his father discouraged him since the business was not thriving. Jose suggested instead that he try his luck in Manila.

He did not have to look far. With two degrees from De La Salle, he immediately received job offers from some of the country's biggest companies. From among the offers he decided to accept the one from San Miguel Corporation, the blue-chip beer and food conglomerate. It was a dream job for a provinciano (province-bred person).

Robredo's first assignment at San Miguel was in the Physical Distribution Technical Services department of the General Services Division. Having learned the value of hard work from his father, he thought nothing of working extra hours; promotions came quickly. Within six months he had hurdled two of the three levels in the division and was then sent to the finance division for another six months. When his immediate superior was moved to Magnolia, the ice cream division of San Miguel, he was invited to come along. He was assigned to logistics planning and concurrently functioned as staff assistant to the physical distribution director.

While in that position, twenty-six-year-old Robredo was dispatched to the northern town of San Fernando, La Union, to investigate reports of two anomalies at the Magnolia Dairy Products Plant there. Relatives of Magnolia employees had won the major prizes in a promotional contest and there were also reports of warehouse pilferage. To determine what went wrong with the contest, Robredo made an assessment of its rules and procedures and analyzed the company's control measures. He traced the theft to tampered documents. To eliminate any recurrence, he streamlined the flow of documents and instituted an efficient system of controls. At the same time, he upgraded the plant's entire warehousing system by improving the use of resources, cutting down on overtime, and improving productivity.

The move to La Union came at a difficult time for Robredo since he was enrolled in a graduate program in business administration at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. Once a week, immediately after his night classes, he would take the bus from Quezon City to La Union, a tiring five-hour trip. Arriving at midnight, he would sleep for about five hours and then report for work. His sacrifices paid off when he finished at the top of his class in 1985 and named the Graduate School and Faculty Organization awardee for scholarly excellence.

For almost a year after La Union, Robredo was assigned as area physical distribution head for Visayas and Mindanao in the southern Philippines, based in Mandaue, Cebu Province. That stint over, he moved back to the warehousing unit of Magnolia in Manila.

Robredo looks back today on these early years with San Miguel as good preparation for being mayor. During this time, San Miguel propagated the slogans "The best resource of this company is its people" and "Profit with honor." It emphasized product excellence. Whether in sports or in generating profits, being number one was the rule.

"San Miguel gave me the experience to deal with all types of people. When you are in charge of a warehouse, you deal with managers as well as with people who have not had much of an education, the laborers and the labor leaders. It was a fairly good exposure," says Robredo. Having also learned about human relations from his parents, who taught him that "you must give a sense of importance to everybody if you expect them to work well for you," he organized a basketball tournament in La Union, as a way of building camaraderie among the warehousing employees, and took pains to be present at the wakes of his employees' relatives.

Political turbulence surfaced again just as Robredo's corporate career was taking off. On August 21, 1983 Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., a charismatic opposition leader whom Marcos had jailed for years, was assassinated as he returned to the Philippines from self-exile in the United States. Robredo heard the news on his car radio and confirmed it with his cousin Pablito upon reaching home. Two days later, Robredo joined thousands of grieving Filipinos in a queue outside Aquino's house, for a chance to view his bloodied body and to pay his respects. Robredo recalls talking briefly with Aquino's widow, Cory, and telling her he was with San Miguel Corporation. (At the time, San Miguel Corporation was led by Mrs. Aquino's estranged cousin, Eduardo Cojuangco, a well-known supporter of Marcos.)

How could this happen in my country, was Robredo's anguished question. On the day of Aquino's funeral he was among the huge throng that gathered for Mass at the Sto. Domingo Church and joined the march to the cemetery. He remembers that day clearly because in the evening he had an examination to take at the University of the Philippines.

Robredo's intuition told him that Benigno Aquino's assassination would spell the beginning of the end for Marcos. He himself, however, was in a delicate situation. He had become politicized almost overnight but his company was openly and proudly pro-Marcos. Robredo would not be daunted. He even dared to display a yellow ribbon on his car as a sign of sympathy for Aquino and of protest against Marcos.

After the Aquino assassination, the anti-Marcos protest movement penetrated the Magnolia dairy products plant where Robredo worked, just as it penetrated many other sectors of Philippine society. Robredo and four others formed a chapter of the Society for the Professional Advancement of Democracy and Enlightenment (SPADE) at the plant. They joined the movement's noise barrages and marches down Ayala Avenue`in Makati, the country's premier business district. And after the snap election of 1986, they attended the massive rally organized by the followers of presidential candidate Cory Aquino, who believed she had been cheated of victory by the dictator Marcos. During the rally, Mrs. Aquino called for civil disobedience and a boycott of companies owned by Marcos's friends, including San Miguel.

There was a personal dimension to Robredo's opposition to Marcos. His uncle, Luis Villafuerte, the governor of Camarines Sur, had served in the Marcos cabinet but had joined the opposition following the Aquino assassination. Villafuerte subsequently invested in a weekly magazine, Mr. & Ms., which in September 1983 spawned an underground edition that chronicled the growing anti-Marcos protest movement. With Villafuerte on the opposition side, his family and relatives now felt they were free to express the political sentiments they had previously suppressed.

Robredo's participation in the protest movement placed an additional burden on what little time he had for his MBA program. But he persisted, because he realized that graduate studies gave him a background in economics which he had not acquired from his engineering courses. Attending night classes, he took seven trimesters to finish the program.

In February 1986, when the anti-Marcos four-day People Power revolution broke out, Robredo was among the hundreds of thousands who camped out on E. de los Santos Avenue (EDSA). On the night Marcos fled with his family, Robredo and his cousin Pablito were among the first curious Filipinos to arrive in Malacanang, the presidential palace in Manila. They found styrofoam boxes with uneaten food, and photographs of the deposed dictator and his family.

The successful People Power revolution and Cory Aquino's assumption of the presidency gave Robredo hope that the new government would bring about a new and better political order. In March 1986, a month after the revolution, he took a year's leave from San Miguel and returned to Naga upon the invitation of his uncle, the governor. Villafuerte wanted his young nephew to be the program director of the Bicol River Basin Development Program, which was preparing feasibility studies and monitoring and coordinating infrastructure projects in three contiguous provinces. It was funded jointly by the United States Agency for International Development, the Asian Development Bank, and the European Economic Community (EEC).

Robredo planned to work briefly in Naga and then return to San Miguel. The company had reverted to its original owners, the Soriano family, and Eduardo Cojuangco had joined the Marcoses in exile in the United States. Robredo was confident that the company would restore a professional working climate based on the merit system. By November, however, he had decided to stay in Naga. Inspired by the success of People Power at EDSA, he wanted to heed President Corazon Aquino's call to service.

His first months in government service were disappointing and they taught him a painful lesson about politics. The Bicol River Basin Development Program was directly under the office of Vice President Salvador H. Laurel. Laurel wanted to appoint the nephew of Senator Edmundo Cea, one of his political allies, to be Robredo's deputy. He summoned Robredo to his office in Manila. Robredo tried to explain that the deputy program director's post had been filled but that another position was vacant. He returned to Naga believing he had convinced Laurel. Two weeks later, however, Robredo was informed that Laurel had appointed the Cea nephew as program director, replacing Robredo.

Refusing to buckle to pressure, even after Mrs. Aquino's executive secretary Joker Arroyo took Laurel's side, Robredo decided he would sue, not for himself (because he had his San Miguel job waiting for him), but to prove that "this was a different time and a different world." The court rebuffed Laurel and Robredo remained in office a full year.

It was through his job at the Bicol River Basin Development Program that Robredo met the woman who would become his wife. Maria Leonor "Leni" Gerona was also from Naga and had returned there in search of a job after graduating from the University of the Philippines College of Economics. Her father was a judge and a friend of the Villafuertes. She applied for work at the Program and was interviewed by Robredo himself. She struck him as a very bright young woman who did not need a politician's recommendation to land a job. That is not the way we run this office, Robredo assured her. After she passed the examination for applicants and the interview, he hired her to join his staff.

Unknown to Robredo, the governor had bigger plans for him. Villafuerte's father, Mariano, had been a congressman and governor of Camarines Sur, and his older brother, Mariano Jr., was vice mayor of Naga. Luis himself started to rise as his province's political kingpin after Marcos declared martial law. He had earlier drawn Marcos's attention as a brilliant investment-bank lawyer. So impressed was Marcos with Villafuerte that he was invited to be a candidate of the administration party, Kilusang Bagong Lipunan, for the Interim Batasang Pambansa (Interim National Assembly) in 1978. He won, and even before warming his seat in the Assembly, was appointed minister of trade in 1979.

Just before the elections for the regular Batasang Pambansa in 1984, however, Villafuerte suddenly defected to the opposition party, the United Nationalist Democratic Organization. He won a seat in the Batasang Pambansa and, with the fall of Marcos and the ascension of Aquino, found himself on the right side of power. As a leader of the new ruling party, he was appointed chair of the Presidential Commission on Government Reorganization and officer-in-charge/governor of Camarines Sur.

At this time, two groups were jockeying for political power in Camarines Sur. Villafuerte's supremacy was threatened by Raul Roco, who had defeated Villafuerte's candidate in the 1987 congressional elections. Roco had gained a reputation in the province as a local boy who made good, having reaped success first as a national student leader and legal scholar, then as a young delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1971, and then as a corporate lawyer in Manila. Now he was back home testing the political arena and finding it to his liking. In the local elections the following year, Roco fielded his brother, Ramon, for the mayoral post in Naga. Villafuerte, needing a winnable candidate to challenge Ramon Roco, convinced Robredo to run. The incumbent mayor stepped aside and pledged his support to Robredo.

Robredo was not interested in running at first. But after having campaigned extensively in Naga when its former vice mayor, Virginia Felipe Perez, ran for Congress against Raul Roco, he realized that he could do something for his city. He was very naïve at the time, he says. "I didn't know what politics was all about."

To campaign, Robredo mobilized his supporters and went from house to house around the city not just once but three times. Like all politicians, he became fair game for anyone who wanted money for anything from tuition to basketball to medicine. His relatives proved more than generous with their contributions to his campaign fund. One of his godfathers at marriage, who owned the biggest athletic goods store in Naga, donated basketballs and uniforms.

Early in the campaign, Robredo told himself that if he won he would change the rules for running for public office. Philippine elections have become notorious for awarding victory to candidates loaded with "guns, goons and gold," even at the local level. Robredo himself estimates that he must have spent from P1.5 million to P2 million on his campaign. But to his credit he combined the traditional politician's tactics with a sound development plan for Naga. He assured the people that, if they would give him a chance, he could get foreign funding for his projects.

There were six candidates for mayor. Robredo garnered 24 percent of the votes, leading his closest rival, Ramon Roco, by only 947 votes. Winning along with him were his partner for vice mayor and three of the councilors on his ticket. The seven other councilors were from the opposition. Villafuerte himself was elected governor of Camarines Sur.

Robredo was tweny-nine when he took over City Hall in 1988. The challenges he faced were formidable, not least among them a tradition of old politics that eschewed change and sought to retain the status quo. Nor did he need reminding that he was the minority mayor of a third-class town with a one-million-peso budget deficit. There were other serious problems: the central business district was overcrowded and the volume of traffic had become unmanageable; the local economy was sluggish and employment scarce; basic services, particularly in health and education, had deteriorated; theaters and nightclubs offering smut films and lewd shows were prospering; illegal gambling was rampant, encouraged by "untouchable" syndicates; and the number of homeless urban poor had become alarming.

At the time, Naga, with a land area of 77.4 square kilometers and a population of 130,000, ranked forty-fifth among sixty Filipino cities in terms of size and thirty-ninth in terms of population. It had a proud history as a royal city named Ciudad de Nueva Caceres during the Philippines' three centuries of Spanish colonization. But it had long ceased to be the premier city and religious, educational, commercial, and political center of the Bicol region. Instead, it had deteriorated into a third-class rural city with no money in its coffers.

The new mayor was aware that there were many among his constituents who thought him too young and too raw for the job and that his only credential was his being the governor's nephew. "To a certain extent," he says on hindsight, "my ignorance of what government is all about helped. You don't have those conventions and traditions to comply with."

Right from the start, Robredo resolved to make Naga the most outstanding city in Southern Luzon, the most progressive, and the best governed. Bolstered by his strong management background, he formulated a mission and a vision for his city. The mission: "Through a well-defined development plan and a corps of honest and dedicated public servants working hand in hand with the people, we shall pursue economic growth with equity." The vision: "A city with an economy considered as the most progressive in Southern Luzon, the impact of which will be felt even by the lowliest Naguenos now sufficiently empowered to chart their own future."

Robredo launched his term with a challenge to his fellow Naguenos that was at once a slogan and a question: "Progress for Naga, if not now, when?" Along with that he presented them with a Medium-Term Development Plan. He was determined to be a mayor who was a manager rather than a politician.

At City Hall itself, employee morale was low; the work force of 400 had become passive and lethargic. Banking on a strong political will, Robredo introduced the first of a number of measures to build a culture of excellence in the local bureaucracy and to inspire public confidence in his administration. He would reorganize City Hall on the basis of employee aptitude and competence, to be determined by a skills test and rewarded with a salary adjustment and a transparent, merit-based system of hiring and promotion.

On his first week on the job, Mayor Robredo called all City Hall employees to a meeting and told them that henceforth he wanted them to report for work on time; just one instance of tardiness would mean dismissal from office, he warned them. He then asked them two questions: Did they want to stay in their jobs? If they did, could they promise him that they would succeed in their jobs? If they answered yes to both questions, they were to take an examination that would determine their capabilities and aptitudes and match their skills with appropriate positions, as well as reveal something of their personality and general disposition and level of creativity.

The Sangguniang Panlunsod (City Council) promptly filed a resolution questioning the constitutionality of such a test. Robredo was unfazed. If they did not want to take the test, or if they believed it was unconstitutional, he said, that was fine with him. But they could not expect any promotion. At the same time, in a gesture that showed his keen sensitivity to people's reaction to any drastic change, he assured the employees that the results of the examination would not jeopardize their jobs.

Having established a merit system in City Hall, he proceeded to implement a two-pronged Productivity Improvement Program or PIP, targeting employee empowerment (people change) and improvements in systems and procedures (systems change) to improve the quality and quantity of the city's delivery of services. The objective of the PIP was to transform local government employees into "partners in development" who would be driven not by rules and regulations but by a vision and a mission.

The PIP worked to meet the following goals: to set the response time in the delivery of city services to its barest minimum; to achieve peak productivity levels in all departments and offices; to encourage employees themselves to submit ideas for improving productivity; to upgrade the skills and competence of employees through regular seminars, workshops, and other training activities; to reduce costs; and to set up a feedback mechanism for the public.

To prepare employees for the PIP, Robredo either hired local consultants or accepted the services of volunteers. The human resources unit of City Hall also conducted orientation and reorientation workshops to immerse individuals in the culture of City Hall and to acquaint them with its systems and procedures. Additional training programs were designed to enhance employees' computer skills and to teach them quality and customer orientation and other directly applicable skills.

Drawing once more on his experience in the private sector, Robredo adapted techniques in human resource management to measure and reward his employees' performance. He instituted a "Contract of Deliverables" that specified the service an individual sought from City Hall, the person responsible for it, and the response time. It is not surprising that since 1990, when the Civil Service Commission in Manila launched a Dangal ng Bayan award for outstanding public service, city employees of Naga have invariably been among the honorees.

To eliminate the old system of political patronage, Robredo issued an executive order reconstituting the membership of the Personnel Selection Board. He followed this up with other executive orders creating administrative units that would expand and strengthen service delivery. Among the units were an anti-vice squad, a senior citizens league, a day care board, task forces for water and cleanliness, and an Urban Poor Affairs Office. In 1990 the Merit Promotion Plan and the System of Ranking Positions was amended.

Robredo depoliticized the system of appointments by vesting the Merit and Promotions Board with almost full authority over promotions and permanent appointments. Previously, the Board had been required to submit to the mayor's office three nominees for a position. Robredo simply asked the Board to rank the nominees and the first-ranking individual was appointed.

Among Robredo's first acts when he assumed office was to determine how much money the city government had. The city treasurer told him that the government had incurred a budgetary deficit of one million pesos from the previous year. In conversations with some City Hall employees, Robredo learned how poorly they were being compensated. For example, a guard at the public market was earning P18 a day, with no allowance. Where would he begin, Robredo asked himself.

With the help of an assistant whom he had brought over from the Bicol River Basin Development Project, he realized that Naga's niche was as a center for trade and education and that he needed an accurate economic profile of the city.

Next, he told his tax collector that it was time to tell Naga's businessmen to pay their taxes conscientiously and honestly. It was an unpopular move, but the mayor was adamant. He reminded his people that the real beneficiaries of an improved collection of taxes would be the city employees. He recalls, "We were not that tough, but we were firm enough to make people believe that we meant what we said."

Tax collection did improve, and in his first year in office Robredo was able to implement a 10 percent across-the-board salary increase for City Hall employees and a 200 percent raise in their cost-of-living allowance. The following year, their salaries were fully standardized.

Maximizing revenues was an integral part of the PIP. A homegrown computerization program helped to improve collection dramatically. The three components of the program - a management information system, a geographic information system, and a minimum basic needs database - integrated revenue generation and social development and thus enabled the city to improve its delivery of services to the populace. Over a ten-year period, the city registered an astounding 1,020 percent increase in total income and a 573 percent rise in locally generated revenues. Given these remarkable figures, the national Department of Finance was only too happy to restore Naga to first-class city status.

True to a promise he made during the campaign, Robredo closed down the city's gambling joints and nightclubs, which were actually fronts for drug dens. These, he said, were the symbols of what government should not be. It was not an easy task to close the gambling places. The usual practice in the appointment of the chief of police was for the mayor to choose from among three nominees submitted by the provincial command of the Philippine National Police. Villafuerte wanted the new mayor to appoint a man who had been his classmate. Robredo refused, knowing that the man did not share his position on gambling. Villafuerte then got the support of the Office of the President in Manila, and his protégé was appointed. Refusing to buckle, Robredo went to the archbishop of Caceres, Monsignor Leonardo Z. Legazpi, who had earlier written him to express pleasure over the mayor's refusl to accept money from gambling. The archbishop in turn appealed to President Aquino for help and two weeks later the chief of police was unseated.

Villafuerte's disagreement with Robredo's tough stance against jueteng, an illegal numbers game popular among provincial Filipinos, spelled the beginning of a falling out between them. Robredo had proven that he was his own man and that he meant to stay that way. But the same willfulness boosted his stock among his constituents who realized he really meant business.

Robredo waged his crusade against drugs (marijuana and, later, shabu), gambling and other forms of vice with only four policemen, who comprised his anti-vice squad. They were members of the regular police force but were assigned to be his bodyguards during the campaign. Now they were the mayor's police force based in City Hall, as distinguished from the city's regular 110-person contingent. When a drug dealer was arrested, for example, Robredo made it a point to call in the media. The resultant publicity served two purposes: first, to inform the people that something was being done against vice lords; and second, to show the regular police force what they should be doing.

While his administration did not completely eliminate drugs, it did stop jueteng - although, with active support from the police, this popular vice did occasionally resurface. Robredo was aware of this, and confronted the regional commander at the office of Interior Secretary Rafael Alunan. Once Robredo had made his position clear, the jueteng joints disappeared from Naga but moved to its fringes.

Another of Robredo's early priorities was relieving the traffic jams that had become a major headache in Naga. His solution was to ask the Sanggunian Panlunsod to pass an ordinance that would move the bus and jeepney terminals outside the business district. The Sanggunian did so, and when the ordinance was about to be implemented, the city government found itself facing eighteen legal cases, mainly from the terminal operators but also from some of the new mayor's supporters. The chief of police, the governor's former classmate, refused to enforce the ordinance. The complainants won a 15-day restraining order. Summoned to appear in court, Robredo was able to convince the judge that the ordinance was legal. It was the City Hall police who had to implement the ordinance. (Among those who were adversely affected were Robredo's own siblings, who owned a grocery store near the terminal.)

All the court cases were eventually dismissed. Robredo looks back on that traffic ordinance as the most important decision he ever made as mayor. It was also a creative response to a nagging problem. In time, Naguenos realized its benefits to them: it expanded the commercial area, brought about new development in the city, and made people realize that, with political will, anything is possible.

Along with relocating the bus and jeepney terminals, the city administration began to develop a new commercial and business district in a neglected area along the railroad tracks. The project was made possible by private capital and cost the city government virtually nothing. Satellite markets soon rose in key urban districts to complement the public market.

Robredo took pains to woo big business, including food franchises like Jollibee and McDonald's and food manufacturing giants such as Swift's and Purefoods, to set up shop in Naga. Knowing they needed the right climate for business-meaning no red tape and no graft-he told them that the peace and order situation was good and that City Hall had close working relationships with the water district and the electric cooperative. He also invested greatly in infrastructure. (In his second term it helped that Robredo was among the very few politicians who gambled on Fidel V. Ramos in the 1992 presidential election. When Ramos won, Robredo was assured access to national government resources, particularly for infrastructure.)

In 1993, two years after the Local Government Code which granted greater autonomy to local governments took effect, Robredo conceptualized a Metro Naga Development Council, or MNDC. He realized that the Code could engender fierce competition among adjoining local government units, which would work to their mutual disadvantage, but that Naga could not afford to either isolate or insulate itself from its neighboring municipalities. On the contrary, Robredo recognized that Naga itself would benefit in the long term from the growth and development of its neighbors. Already, Naga's increasing prosperity was drawing migrants from the less progressive municipalities, thus adding to its already large urban poor population. It would also be cheaper and more convenient for Naga to rely on its neighbors for its growing need for goods, services, and even physical space.

Robredo invited the mayors of twelve adjoining towns to an informal meeting and broached his idea. He informed them that the MNDC could address their common concerns on transport, water supply, investments, and resource mobilization. It was the latter concern that most appealed to the mayors. It meant combining their resources and efforts to secure grants from the national government and other sources. They agreed to do so, as well as to define their individual strengths and capacities and to develop these. Naga, for example, is a trading-and-services city, and so the next town could be developed into a warehousing center, and another into a housing or industrial town. Through the MNDC, poorer local government units could count on the assistance of their more affluent neighbors.

As Robredo pointed out, "Naga should not be greedy. We should let each town become a center of specific activities. By improving the economy in adjacent municipalities, we will minimize [population] movement to the city."

In the beginning, some people suspected the motives behind Robredo's proposal. Some said he had a political agenda, to run for congress, for example. But they were eventually convinced that the MNDC was a wise concept, and today fifteen out of Camarines Sur's thirty-seven towns are members of the Council.

President Ramos issued an executive order granting official recognition to the MNDC and providing funding for it as well. Naga and the other towns contributed counterpart funds amounting to 1.5 percent of their individual economic development funds. Naga accounted for the biggest contribution. Robredo was elected the Council's first chairperson and remained chairman until the end of his third term as mayor. He forsees the Council's role growing larger over the years as it begins to tackle such problems as consolidating solid waste management and the water supply.

A major breakthrough during Robredo's tenure was land ownership for heretofore landless urban squatters. His efforts in this direction began during his first term. Leaders of the Naga City Urban Poor Federation went to see him soon after he assumed office. They wanted to know whether the urban poor would be a priority of his administration. In response, he gave them an office and appointed the first urban poor affairs officer.

There was a personal reason that Robredo assigned such a high priority to housing for Naga's urban poor. Behind his parents' old house was a two-hectare lot where squatters had been living even before he was born. He had assured them that he would not leave City Hall until he was able to give them the property.

From a management perspective, Robredo also saw that, over the long haul, quick action on housing for the poor entailed lower costs (since the cost of urban land was constantly rising) and also higher productivity (since workers with a stake in the city would likely work harder); this, in turn, would lead to accelerated economic growth.

The result was a program called Kaantabay sa Kauswagan, or Partners in Development, which sought to "provide permanent solutions to all land tenurial problems involving the poor." City Hall explained it as "the city government's primary response to the mass housing problem of the urban poor." The program focused not only on improving the living conditions of squatters and slum dwellers but also on empowering them through the provision of home lots, basic infrastructure, and services as well as livelihood opportunities. Robredo hoped that the program would also awaken the urban poor to their political rights.

Partners in Development entailed four main activities: on-site development, focusing on the improvement of existing urban poor communities; off-site development, focusing on creating relocation sites for victims of eviction and demolition; capability building, providing training in community organization, leadership, and values reorientation; and support services, including land surveys, legal assistance, mediation in land disputes, and help moving one's belongings from one site to another.

The city government made idle public land available for the program. In a significant move, the Catholic Church expressed itself willing to place a five-hectare prime commercial property under the program; people had been squatting on this property since the 1950s. Previous negotiations with the Church had broken down, however. Robredo spoke with the archbishop directly and agreed to pay the Church's below-market asking price. The Church agreed, and the city government secured the money to buy the land. The success of Robredo's negotiations with the Church proved to other landowners that the local government was sincere in its dealings and had the capacity to pay in cash.

Robredo tried other means of acquiring land from property owners, including proposals for land sharing, land swapping, and relocation. Under the land-sharing scheme that was used with commercial property owners, the government got one landowner to sell his property on the condition that the squatters would move to the back of the property to enable the landowner to make use of the prime land for commercial development. Another property owner agreed to a land swap, that is, an exchange of similarly sized properties in different area, thus preventing the demolition of already existing houses on his property.

Aware that the program could draw more poor migrants into the city, the city government made sure it would deal only with legitimate urban poor organizations. Inventories were made of qualified recipients so that the program would benefit only genuine residents of the city.

A State of the City Report issued in 1997, the year before Robredo left office, estimated the number of Naga's squatters and slum dwellers at 5,500 families, about 25 percent of the total number of families in the city. As a result of Kaantabay sa Kauswagan, the report said, a total of 49.6 hectares of government and privately owned land had been distributed since 1989 to some 4,688 urban poor families. The report added that the government had also acquired 25.4 hectares for future housing projects.

Squatters who were awarded land under the city government's program were supposed to pay for it but not all of them had the capacity to do so. Robredo sees no logic in insisting that the poor pay when they have no means to do so. Today he suggests that a minimal amount of ten pesos a month might be more realistic.

It was also mainly for his poor constituents that Robredo sought to improve health services and the quality of education. The city built the Naga City Hospital, which became the first of its kind in Southern Luzon to be owned and maintained by a local government unit. Additional health centers were established in the barangays. With their focus on child nutrition programs, they enabled Naga to become the most consistent top performer among sixty-two cities in terms of child welfare, according to the United Nations Children's Fund and the League of Cities of the Philippines.

The Naga City Hospital serves as headquarters of Emergency Rescue Naga or ERN, an emergency response service begun in 1991 and patterned after the United States' Rescue 911. ERN provides 24-hour quick medical and protective services and aims to democratize access to services during emergencies. It coordinates the resources of the city and the various agencies -- police, fire department, association of barangay councils, the media, and private medical volunteers -- in providing emergency rescue and transfer, first aid, ambulance service, quick police response, traffic control, fire fighting, safety promotion, and disaster preparedness and control. At least twenty-three private associations participate in the program, which has been honored by the Gantimpalang Paglingkod Pook, or Galing Pook Awards, which recognize "innovation and excellence in local governance."

In education, Robredo introduced a program for preschoolers that represented an enduring investment in his city's future. Called Naga Early Education and Development (NEED), it has as its most important component a Montessori-based day-care system in all the twenty-seven barangays. The day care centers not only prepare children to enter and succeed in grade school, but also ease the integration of handicapped children into the mainstream education system. Children who are found to have congenital and developmental abnormalities are provided a learning center equipped with facilities for physical and mental therapy. On the other hand, bright and promising children are placed in a school that emphasizes early education and development.

Robredo did not forget to provide for illiterate and semiliterate adults and out-of-school youth. For them he drew up a nonformal education program.

When Robredo assumed office in 1988, the Sanggunian was controlled by the opposition party. He knew that the only way he could promote his agenda was to develop and mobilize his own supporters. Early in his first term, he forged a strong partnership between his administration and civil society. This partnership was institutionalized in 1995 with the passage by the city council of a landmark legislation that has been described as "Robredo's enduring legacy to the cause of local autonomy." Called the "Empowerment Ordinance of Naga City," it provides that the city government "hereby declares itself open to a partnership with duly accredited Naga-based people's organizations and nongovernment organizations in the conception, implementation, and evaluation of all government activities and functions."

To operationalize it, a "people's council" composed of duly accredited NGOs and POs in the city was set up. The council was tasked to appoint NGO representatives to special bodies of the local government; to observe, vote, and participate in the deliberation, conceptualization, implementation, and evaluation of projects, activities and programs of the city government; to propose legislation, participate and vote at the committee level of the Sangguniang Panlunsod; and to represent the people in the exercise of their constitutional rights to information on matters of public concern and of access to official records and documents.

Robredo explains the need for the ordinance in these words: "We (city council) realized we would not be forever in City Hall, so we felt the need to institutionalize the role of NGOs. The ordinance was needed so that if a mayor is not inclined to support NGOs, they have the legal basis to ask to participate." The ordinance, he reports, has made NGOs more vigilant and more supportive of government initiatives.

A year after the ordinance took effect, a network of NGOs and other civil society organizations formed the Naga City People's Council, the first functional people's council in the Philippines. In June that year, representatives of Naga City, the NCPC and other key stakeholders met and identified three areas of priority concern: clean-up of the Naga River, solid waste management, and upgrading Naga City Hospital. These issues were submitted to the national government for technical assistance under the auspices of the Naga City Participatory Planning and Development Initiatives or NCPPI.

In previous years, the city government and the NGOs had performed their roles in relative isolation insofar as local development planning was concerned. Within a year after the NCPPI was launched, twenty-eight consultations were held at the village, city, and task-force levels; thirty strategic management plans were developed, including the Naga River Watershed Strategic Management Plan and the Naga City Solid Waste Management Plan, a City Health Plan, and twenty-seven village-level health plans; and the City Health Board was revitalized.

In 1998 the NCPPI was cited by the United Nations Center for Human Settlements as one of the ten best practices worldwide in improving the living environment and given the Dubai International Award.

But it was not only the support of civil society that Robredo sought to win. He also set about organizing everyone from tricycle drivers to newsboys. He held monthly group consultations with them, during which he would inquire into their problems and hear out their proposed solutions and offer his own. Some of these organized groups, like the Naga City Urban Poor Federation, already existed before Robredo's time, but his predecessor had largely ignored them. Robredo gave them a voice. In time these organizations became part of the distribution system for social services. Robredo describes this strategy as "a good blend of politics and service delivery." It was a way of facilitating the work of City Hall, but it also gave the people a sense of community and belonging.

With the support of City Hall employees, Leni Robredo started a women's organization for training and livelihood enhancement called Lakas ng Kababaihan ng Naga Federation (Power of Women in Naga Federation). Using a top-down recruitment process, she picked the leaders from each barangay who in turn chose the leaders at the lower level. In Naga, barangays are divided into seven zones each, and each zone is the unit of the chapters of Lakas. Each chapter has its own president and set of officers. A barangay coordinator coordinates the seven chapters within its jurisdiction. At the city level, they form a federation, which has its own set of officers. Starting with 5,000 members in 1989, Lakas grew to 15,000 by 1997. Its organizing process became the model for similar sectoral organizations later on. Leaders were picked from each barangay and they in turn chose leaders at the lower (zone) level. Zone-level leaders invited their neighbors.

Robredo also organized election watchers into the Barangay People's Organization (later called the Barangay People's Foundation in 1995). Their main function was to inspect the counting of votes during elections. Members were recruited through the recommendation of Robredo's leaders at the barangay level.

Quasi-government bodies were also created to coordinate delivery of sector-specific services by national and local government bodies. These were the Naga City Senior Citizens League, Naga City Anti-Drug Abuse Council, Naga City Sports Council, City Complaints and Assistance Team, and the City Development Information Council.

More than efficiency, entrepreneurship and equity, however, Naga's NGOs and people's organizations demanded high moral ethics from their public servants. This placed pressure on the local government to develop internal systems for monitoring and encouraging ethical behavior by all employees. Robredo initiated a multiple feedback system whereby employees gave anonymous feedback to their superiors, and superiors gave feedback to their subordinates. The public gave feedback directly to the mayor on the quality of the delivery of basic services by the City Hall employees. Individuals, teams, and departments were rewarded in informal and formal ways for outstanding performance. Rewards included "employee of the year" and "group achiever of the year" citations, which were accompanied by cash awards, a two-step salary increase, certificates and plaques of merit, and an automatic nomination for a national award.

Under Robredo, the incidence of graft and corruption in City Hall was reduced to a minimum. He made sure that procurement for public works projects, a major source of graft, was done through open and transparent bidding and that the estimates were made as realistic as possible. Aware of the opportunities for taking shortcuts, Robredo instituted good project management and project monitoring. Not one to curry favor or to dispense it to his constituents, he earned a reputation as "kuripot" (tightfisted) on money matters. His philosophy, as far as doling out money was concerned, was "I can give you my talent, I can give you my time, but I do not like to give you my money because if I do that, then we will probably have problems later on." He set up a system whereby all charitable expenses, in the Philippines usually distributed as though they were being made personally by politicians, were charged to City Hall. For example, medicine for the indigent was charged to the City Health Office, and expenses for the burial of poor Naguenos to the City Social Welfare and Development Office.

City Hall employees who were caught in the act of bribery or any other anomaly were either suspended or fired. In a case of tampering with receipts in the treasurer's office, which Robredo learned about because someone at the office reported it, some of those involved resigned out of shame, while those who did not were fired.

The year 1992 was reelection year for local officials, including Robredo. This time, he could no longer count on his governor-uncle's political support. In fact Villafuerte fielded his own sister, Pura Luisa V. Magtuto, a former high school principal, to run against Robredo. The Rocos aligned themselves with the Villafuertes. Villafuerte himself sought reelection as governor and Raul Roco made a run for the Senate. Both belonged to the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino party or LDP (Fight of Democratic Filipinos). Robredo had left the party following his rift with Villafuerte and had joined the newly formed Lakas-NUCD party of Fidel Ramos.

The Villafuerte-Roco alliance had funds on their side. Robredo had the organizations which he set up during his first term and which now formed his political machine. Villafuerte in turn set up Bunyog Banuaan (Unity of the Town) and provided loans to grass-roots leaders, assuring them that if his sister won, these debts would not have to be paid back. Vote-buying was also said to have been rampant during that campaign, with estimates of from P10 million to P12 million spent for that purpose.

Desperate to win the election against an incumbent who had established an outstanding track record, the Villafuertes raised the issue of citizenship against Robredo. In a case for deportation filed with the Bureau of Immigration, they claimed that the mayor's father was a Chinese citizen. In the first of what would have been a series of debates between the candidates for mayor, the Villafuertes brought in hecklers to chant "Chinese! Chinese!" Immigration Commissioner Leandro Verceles, however, dismissed the case in 1994, and the debates never went beyond the first one. The Villafuertes also took to calling Robredo an ingrate, a grave offense in Philippine culture, particularly when it is committed against one's relatives. Most of the city's print and radio media were loyal to the Villafuertes, who owned a radio station.

Despite the odds, and to his surprise, Robredo won by a landslide (33,487 or 80 percent of the votes, to Magtuto's 9,056), and his candidates for vice mayor and councilors likewise swept the polls. Only one of the Sanggunian candidates was an incumbent; the others had allied themselves with the Villafuertes. Even Robredo's candidates for Congress won. Villafuerte himself lost, but Roco was elected to the Senate. It was an easier campaign, but a bitter election for Robredo. That victory, he says, was a defining moment in his life: "That election clearly manifested the desire of the people of the city that this is the type of leadership and management they would like to have."

If his first term was devoted to an inward look at the city, Robredo and his team could now focus their attention on ways of projecting Naga to the rest of the country. The intention was not to boast about their achievements, but to inspire other local governments to aspire to greater heights. The second term, says Robredo, "was the breakthrough that allowed us to move ahead more quickly."

Having a city council whose members he had handpicked and who owed their loyalty to him, he could now look forward to a relatively trouble-free term. In a significant institutional change, he gave each of the councilors executive assignments. One had wanted to be chief of police, and so Robredo put him in charge of police affairs. Another, a former university dean, was assigned to education. A third, an engineer, was given responsibility for the water supply infrastructure. A fourth, a leftist lawyer, took care of free legal assistance.

It did not worry Robredo that he had placed the councilors above the heads of bureaus or agencies. The latter's word, he assured, would still prevail in day-to-day operations and the councilor's ideas would be taken into account on special concerns and projects. For instance, when a councilor proposed a Montessori program for day-care centers in all the barangays, Robredo allowed her to bring in a Montessori-school expert from Manila to train day-care workers. The councilor felt that the level of education should be improved starting at the preschool level, and the day-care system would be an ideal venue for preparing children for elementary school.

Another councilor proposed a public high school that would be on a par with private high schools in the city. The result was the Naga City Science High School. From having only one high school, Naga now has six.

Robredo also turned over the reins of his anti-vice police squad to the councilor who had dreamed of becoming a police officer. The councilor turned out to be overzealous in his new job and was soon facing a court suit for having towed one vehicle too many.

During his second term, Robredo improved on the productivity circles he had institutionalized during his first term. These could be as simple as the light patrol, which encouraged the people to look at the street lamps in the evening and report to City Hall if any of them were not functioning. Or the rut patrol, to see that the streets were being properly maintained and to report problems to the city engineer's office. The message was that everyone should not only take an interest but also be concerned with and feel responsible for everything that the local government was doing. The mayor also instituted a quick-response program.

PIP-related activities were documented through close monitoring and evaluation of the target clientele's satisfaction level. Frontline patrol groups were created to monitor, report, coordinate, and follow up for immediate action problems on roads, water, environment, garbage and sanitation, streetlights, and billboards. In addition, public perceptions were measured through mid-year and year-end citywide surveys and zone-level consultations.

Robredo says that it was during his second term that he truly enjoyed being in City Hall. "There were a lot of ideas and a lot of experiments," he says. He had earned the people's trust and no longer felt he had to dazzle them with programs. This time he sat down to the serious business of governing. He had already adapted many of the management strategies he had learned at San Miguel and in graduate school. One of San Miguel's programs was the very innovative person (VIP) program. Applied to City Hall, it yielded more cost-effective suggestions, such as the pharmacist taking time to make an inventory of her stock of medicine and coming up with a procurement formulary that saved the city government a million pesos a year. A clerk in Robredo's office realized that the written forms for travel orders for employees did not have to be accomplished in four copies.

Cash rewards awaited the employees who could come up with innovative programs, and the Commission on Audit allowed the city government to give a percentage of the savings from the new programs to their proponents as a bonus.

It was also during Robredo's second term that the Sanggunian voted to conduct the very first referendum in the country, which is provided for in the Local Government Code. The people were consulted on development issues in the city, such as: Should they float funds? Should they put up a new commercial district? Should the tricycles be color-coded? It was another instance of people empowerment at the local level.

Robredo installed a performance evaluation system in 1990 and the employee suggestion and incentive award systems in 1992. Among the new features of the performance evaluation system was a focus on outputs rather than on activities or processes. Employees were now given appropriate recognition for their performance and contributions. And there was a two-way feedback system whereby the staff rated even the department heads. The employee suggestion and incentive awards system encouraged employees continuously to look for ideas to make city services faster and better and that would also result in improved working conditions.

In another innovative move, Robredo set up ten quasi-official organizations in City Hall, most of whose members came from the urban poor. To handle them, he set up a special office in City Hall, the Lingkod Barangay Office. Another office, the Development Office for Livelihood, Employment, Cooperatives and Manpower, provided loans of up to P15,000 to medium- and small-scale enterprises in the city without collateral. Among the beneficiaries were street vendors and watch repairers.

Robredo does not deny that the Barangay People's Organization (BPO) he set up in 1988 was designed to provide the watchers for himself and his candidates during elections. His political philosophy, he explains, has always been that "we should rely equally on non-elected members of the community to help us." Philippine election laws allow candidates to have their own watchers who, aside from the formal function of inspecting the counting of votes, also do surveillance and other tasks. Robredo maintained watchers in every one of Naga's 321 precincts. Members of the BPO were recruited through the recommendation of Robredo's leaders at the barangay level, such as the barangay chiefs and councilors. The unit of organization is based on barangays. Robredo, however, emphasizes that the BPO 's resources are marshaled not only during elections; members should feel they are part of an ongoing process of advocacy. The BPO has expanded its reach to cooperatives which extend loans provided by the city government.

In 1991, when the Congress of the Philippines passed the Local Government Code, which granted mayors greater autonomy and more power over the administrative and fiscal structure of city governments, Robredo made changes in internal human resource management practices, programs, and structures. He also augmented and strengthened the Office of the Mayor to make it more responsive to his administration's priority programs, adding several new departments: the Urban Poor Affairs Office; the Development Office for Livelihood, Employment, Cooperatives and Manpower; the Electronic and Data Processing Unit; the Lingkod Barangay Office; the City Nutrition and Population Office; and the Human Resource Management. The Office of the Civil Registrar, which previously had been attached to the City Health Office, also became autonomous.

Under Robredo's leadership Naga underwent nothing less than a renaissance in 10 years. In trade and commerce there was a 96 percent increase in the number of commercial establishments from 1988 to 1996 and a 159 percent increase in the number of market stalls . The Naga City public market was completely rehabilitated and augmented with four satellite markets and three community markets. Other indicators of rapid development included the entry of fifteen new banks, a 195 percent increase in the number of other financial institutions, and a doubling in the number of city hotels and motels.

New jobs were created annually as business expanded and as the city government introduced various livelihood programs and opportunities for enhancing employability.

In real estate development, a 100 percent increase in building construction was noted over a six-year period; a new subdivision was developed every year for eight years; and four shopping malls rose where there used to be none.

In sustainable agriculture, there was a marked increase in agricultural and livestock production and in livestock population.

A UN-funded study on shelter strategies found that in terms of family income the average monthly take-home of Naguenos rose by 62 percent from P3,532 in 1988 to P5,710 in 1991.The same study placed their monthly income at least 34 percent higher than other Bicolano urban dewellers among the lowest income earners, and 132 percent higher than other Bicolano urban dwellers among the highest income earners.

Naga's status as a model local government unit was affirmed by three international awards and more than 30 national and regional forms of recognition for outstanding performance in various fields of governance. Robredo himself was honored as one of the 1991 The Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines for government service and as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World in 1996 by the Junior Jaycees. His peers in local governments around the country elected him president of the League of Cities of the Philippines in 1995 and in the region, chair for two terms of the Bicol Regional Development Council.

The sweetest reward was his people's overwhelming support of him and his candidates in three elections. He won a huge majority in 1992 despite the well-oiled machinery of the Villafuertes and he did even better in 1995, when he captured 97 percent of the votes. In 1998, barred by law from running for a fourth term, he nevertheless carried the team he had handpicked to a record victory. All his candidates -- for congressman to mayor to vice mayor and the entire city council -- swept the polls.

Looking back on the achievements of Robredo's three terms as mayor, Jean Llorin, an NGO leader in Naga, says that he ran the city as if it were a corporation. His decisive management style was appropriate for government, adds Miles Arroyo, another NGO leader who is now in the city council. Both Llorin and Arroyo believe that Robredo was effective because he had moral authority. They point to many instances when their mayor displayed leadership by example, especially to City Hall employees. No job was too small or demeaning for him. He was the first to show up at a disaster area, and he would direct traffic, clean up debris, and do whatever else needed to be done. He sat in barangay assemblies and listened to the people.

Archbishop Legazpi, summing up the impact of Robredo's leadership on the city, once said that the mayor gave ordinary people hope that there are government officials who are determined to serve rather than be served.

"People felt that he was someone who could truly attend to their needs," Arroyo and Llorin recall. "Those who did not vote for him he tried to win over, giving more attention to areas where he lost. As a result, the voters themselves decided they would not be bought; hence, his victory despite his opponents' almost limitless resources."

Robredo, however, still worries about the damaging effects of what he calls "dirty politics." He says, "Running a local government is one thing; winning an election is another. The gains of the city might be lost if we make the wrong choice of leaders. It is always more difficult to build than to destroy. Despite our successes, we are not very certain that people will choose the kind of leaders we feel can best serve the city."

But he asserts his confidence in the people of Naga, who have seen that good government is possible if they choose their leaders well. Other candidates, past and present, have deceived the people with their empty promises, but Robredo believes that with the middle class comprising a substantial portion of Naga's electorate, vote buying and dole-outs and promises of free land will not bring about victory for a candidate who is unfit.

In a study titled "Political Machine in an Alternative Perspective: A Case of Naga City," political scientist Takeshi Kawanaka of the Institute of Developing Economies in Japan concludes that it is clear from the case of Naga that "political power derives from neither land ownership nor other kind of personal wealth." He points out that Robredo is neither a landowner nor a big-time businessman, and that even Luis Villafuerte did not rise to power by his own wealth but with the support of former president Marcos using state resources. Kawanaka cites the contined support or loyalty of the grassroots leaders for Robredo even after his rift with Villafuerte, his patron.

In trying to explain the source of Robredo's political strength, Kawanaka cites his "moral appeal" and "his good performance." But these and his other qualities -- his being progressive, innovative, clean, and efficient -- are not enough to keep a leader in power, Kawanaka writes. He thus turns to Robredo's own explanation in an interview with him: "I guess our secret really is not just our performance. I think it's our organization. . . . even if I perform excellently, if I don't have a good organization, I cannot win on a straight ticket."

After returning to private life, Robredo has been asked repeatedly if he had further political plans for himself. He said he would like to return to politics, either as mayor of Naga or as congressman of Camarines Sur. But sometimes he spoke of abandoning politics altogether. The mayorship was a personal sacrifice for Robredo in more ways than one. When he left San Miguel, he was earning P12,000.00 a month as a junior executive. The mayor's salary in 1988 was P8,000.00. He and his wife lived with his parents during his first two terms. His parents were supportive of him, and Robredo jests that since he had to abide by his father's rules. Leni Robredo is a lawyer with an NGO called Saligan which provides legal services to the needy.

After leaving City Hall, Robredo worked for a master's degree in public administration at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After returning to the Philippines, he served as a consultant on local governance for a local democracy project and at the offices of Senators Raul Roco and Blas Ople and as a local government advocacy specialist of COPE (Community Organizers of Philippine Enterprises) Foundation, which specializes in urban poor housing and governance issues. He also found time to teach public administration at the Ateneo de Naga University Graduate School and at the University of Nueva Caceres and in the doctoral program of Colegio de Sta. Isabel.

Jesse Robredo never seems to have as much time for his young family as he would like to have. He and Leni have three daughters: Jessica Marie (born in 1988), Janine Patricia (1994) and Jillian Therese (2000). When he was mayor, he would be at City Hall by eight in the morning, even earlier when there were management meetings, and by seven on Mondays for the flag-raising ceremony. Upon his wife's insistence, he made it a rule to be home for lunch, and was home for dinner at seven. He accepted no social invitations between 6:00 and 7:30 p.m. Leni has proved herself to be a supportive politician's wife as well as an astute and highly principled adviser. She has made it clear to her husband that "if our children cannot inherit anything material, at least they will inherit a good name."



Lorna Kalaw Tirol