Category "Political"

As the May 2025 elections edges even closer, my team and I have been crisscrossing Cebu City to give the good news of what we’ve so far accomplished, give word of what we have planned for the continued development of our beloved Cebu City, and to ask for support.

I want to take the added opportunity to write here to you who have not been able to attend our gatherings, in an attempt to do the same.

The job of being the chief local executive for Cebu City was thrust unto me only in May of last year, when I became Acting Mayor. I ascended to the official position last October.

Both were not of my own choosing. And to be perfectly honest, I was content being vice mayor, having been elected into the position with 283,235 votes – the highest number of votes given to any person who has run for any public position in the history of Cebu City elections.

But part of the oath of office that I took when I became your vice mayor was to “faithfully discharge to the best of my ability, the duties of my present position.”

And this, by law, includes to “automatically exercise the powers and perform the duties and functions of the local chief executive” in cases where the local chief executive is temporarily incapacitated.

Thus, I took to the task at hand. And in the less than a year I have held the duty of mayor, with the help of a dedicated team of like-minded elected and appointed individuals, we accomplished tasks that, I hope, warrants your continued support.

The first six months

We were able to implement sound fiscal policies that prevented budget overruns in our repair of the Cebu City Sports Complex and unnecessary expenses in our hosting of the Palarong Pambansa.

This left us with adequate resources to invest in healthcare infrastructure which includes opening the super health center in Barangay Apas, expanding the Guba Community Hospital into a primary hospital, and taking further steps at operationalizing the Cebu City Medical Center.

Moreover, it provided us the impetus to look at other processes and procedures within the City Government that, in turn, led to the streamlining of systems in other offices like the City Assessors’ Office, and the Office of the Building Official, whereupon documents that used to take months to processes are now released within a day or two.

This gained us the trust of the wider community and, coupled with our belief in diplomacy and in working together to achieve mutually-beneficial solutions to shared problems, improved our working relationship with other agencies like MCWD and CPA.

This, in turn, allowed for shared initiatives that are now bearing fruit – water connectivity to mountain barangays through commissioned pipelines and mobile siphoning facilities for us and MCWD, benefitting countless individuals in the upland who’ve never had piped water before.

And between us and the CPA, our meeting of the minds removes the last obstacles for the Carbon Market Redevelopment.

This, coupled with strengthened protection for stall holders and ambulant vendors through valid lease contracts, will benefit countless individuals through opportunities for viable micro and small businesses, as well as meaningful and dignified labor.

I am the mayor who listens to people. And the more I listen the more I am convinced that the advancement of Cebu City rests not on the shoulders of the few but on the hard work of ordinary individuals – KUGI USWAG SUGBO.

So, it became imperative to me that my mayorship – if only as acting mayor for six months — would be one dedicated to providing opportunities for ordinary individuals and removing the obstacles that hinder their development and growth.

Ascension for the remainder of the term

When the six months were up, I was informed by DILG that I would have to continue discharging the function and ascend as mayor of the City of Cebu until the end of the term, with the dismissal of mayor Mike Rama from service for nepotism and misconduct and, months later, for violations of the anti-graft and corrupt practices act.

My family was all but demonized by former allies. We were blamed for allegedly orchestrating the dismissal even though the actions that led to the filing of administrative and criminal complaints that led to the outcome were not of our own making.

I kept silent so as to be able to focus on work and not be dragged into lengthy and unproductive mudslinging. And, ultimately because of that hard and painful choice, we were able to continue doing good work for the benefit of our constituents.

We were able to, with our professional and productive relationship with the Provincial Government and Pag-Ibig, facilitate a mechanism whereupon individual occupants of the titled land covered in Provincial Ordinance 93-1 could finally and lawfully acquire lot ownership.

We were able to provide livelihood support for thousands of individuals seeking work, even as we strengthened our own placement service for job seekers. We were also able to provide livelihood assistance to our coastline barangays, where our poorest-of-the-poor are concentrated.

We advanced the opportunities for our youth, LGBTQ+, and other sectors to meaningfully participate in governance by, among other initiatives, activating our various government boards.

We created short-term solutions to the perennial problem of flooding not only by continuing to clear our easement areas, and fixing roads and drainage systems, but also through massive dredging, declogging, and desilting operations on our rivers and creeks, as well as cleanups that went beyond catchy slogans and acronyms.

Equally important, we initiated long-term solutions by leveraging aid agencies to create a up-to-date masterplan for our waterways, activated our rivers management and septage management councils, and started the steps to procure a wastewater treatment facility that will allow us to reuse the water that would otherwise just flow directly into the sea while we complain of water shortage.

And to reward the individual workers of City Hall that helped us in this regard and more, we facilitated the regularization of 386 individuals within our ranks, regardless of political affiliation.

Lessons from the past

How we were able to accomplish what we did in such a short time after having been so unceremoniously thrust into the executive, is because of opportunities of service that was presented to us in the past as vice mayor and as a two-term city councilor.

As vice mayor, one is expected to serve as the spare tire to the executive. The tasks and resources assigned to us reflect our “spare” nature. Yet, this pushed us to be more creative in looking for ways to serve our public, leading to our RESULTA paradigm.

We leveraged the legislative power of the Sangguniang Panlungsod to be Responsive to the needs of the executive and the socio-economic concerns of our constituents.

We committed ourselves to advancing Education opportunities of the socio-economically disadvantaged by authoring the ordinance that would establish the Cebu City College, bolstered support for our scholarship program, and facilitated the continuance of our program to distribute free school supplies to public school pupils.

We focused on enabling a truly socialized and equitable system for Settlements or housing not only for 93-1 occupants but for socialized housing beneficiaries occupying private lands within Cebu City and ordinary individuals looking for turnkey opportunities for housing.

We dedicated ourselves to the Urban Development that does not sacrifice the sustainability of our environment, the health of all living things, the protection of our culture, identity, and heritage, and the state of our agriculture and food security assigning personnel and resources to coastal resource management that has seen so much improvement.

We were resolute in facilitating Livelihood opportunities which has not seen thousands of beneficiaries and a nationally-recognized Placement and Employment Services Office.

We were steadfast in addressing the behemoth task of ensuring that people and goods are able to go to where they need to go in the fastest and most convenient way possible by exploring intermodal systems of Transportation that is not limited to BRT but also to pedestrianization.

And we were unwavering in Advancing the participation and representation of civil society in governance by giving space for meaningful engagement, empowerment, dialogue, exchange of ideas and consensus-building, which can lead us towards jointly facilitating, designing, and implementing more effective responses to needs of our city.

We passed the law that created our Cebu City Heritage District and Cebu City Heritage District Council. We celebrated Cebuano artists by expanding our commemoration into the Cebu City Arts Month. And we highlighted the awesomeness of Cebuanos in public service by institutionalizing the annual Rajah Tupas Awards.

Internally, we moved to reward the silent drivers of service inside City Hall – the often-ignored contract-of-service personnel who, by law, are not qualified to receive bonuses despite the hard work that they rendered by authorizing their receipt of gratuitous pay.

We created the Animal Welfare Council on the firm belief that how we are as a society can be judged by the way our animals are treated.

We likewise rendered free legal assistance to no less than 27,445 individuals, mostly victims of disasters who need legal documents to access assistance.

Service that benefits the people

All of the things we’ve done, we are doing, and we are about to do, are anchored on one simple commitment I have to myself when I joined the city government in 2016 – to be of service to those who need government service the most – the ordinary people.

I managed to pass 43 ordinances, 3,320 resolutions, and authored 330 committee reports in two terms – almost half of it sidelined as a member of the minority – because these were ordinances, resolutions and reports that people needed to be passed.

I passed the two ordinances that would extend the validity of business permits to two years and granting amnesty to those who’ve been delinquent in the payment of local taxes because not doing so makes life difficult for our small business owners who employ people.

We gave gratuity pay to retired barangay employees because we want to incentivize people who work in our barangays because our barangays are the real frontline office when it comes to serving people in our communities.

We also passed the ordinance that gave free school supplies to public elementary pupils so that parents wouldn’t have to be burdened by having to buy school supplies for their school-aged children.

All these we did, we did to the best of our ability, and for the benefit of our constituency, the best of our city, and in line with our principle of meaningful public service to all. And with your help and support, we can continue on towards this trajectory of growth and development together.

Daghan kaayong’ salamat ninyong tanan.