THE VERY paradigm of good government is the city.
Getting just about every award at the regional and national levels in the fields of sound fiscal management, good housekeeping, business friendliness, facility of transactions, delivery of services, etc. Why, some international organization even had to craft an award specially for the city, just to keep at pace with its trajectory of best-ness when it comes to public governance.
The paragon of good governance, as much a cause as consequence, naturally becomes the city’s chief executive.
Getting just about every award at the regional and national levels for lifting his city, indeed, for setting the standards of public service way beyond the reach, if not the ken, of even the more socio-economically advanced cities, standards that are superior even to the norms set by the Commission on Civil Service, standards that can only be at par with those of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Hence, it became but a matter of course for the city chief executive to earn some global star status. Current moves from some sectors, notably business, to rename the city are long past due. That should have come at that time the city crested in the firmament of good governance.
And not with mere alteration of the sequence in its official name as now proposed, but with a totally new name most becoming of its character, best reflective of the city’s renown. And what better name for this city than Googooland.
That’s no double take of the slimy substance – goo. It comes from the googoos, or good government guys who banded themselves in the 1890s in good old US of A to wage war against public sector corruption, proving their worth in the New York mayoralty polls of 1894 when they upended the city’s most powerful political machine that was Tammany Hall.
Goo-gooland. Defining good government. Aye, some catchy PR collateral there. Aww, it was not meant to be. Alas, alack, ay sus, as things start to unravel now, the Utopia of good government that was Goo-gooland – within but two years of the exit of its most exalted world-class chief executive – turned into the Dystopia of failing, if not yet failed, governance, to wit: Overtopping the scale of crime for the whole province.
Major transhipment point in the dangerous drugs trade. Poised to be the Habitat of Human Pestilence, sooner than later. Serious conditions, most certainly, but curable with some corresponding, if Dutertian, measures. Outward manifestations as they are of the sickness plaguing the whole Philippine society.
More perilous, is the cancerous growth in the city polity. Threatening to corrupt everything that has been good in its government. But of which the city is in total state of denial. So it was in the previous dispensation that investors laughed their way to and from city hall, unencumbered by even the slightest insinuations of “goodwill” envelopes, much less demands for “facilitation fees” up front.
So it is in the present one that investors shudder in horror at the mere sight of city hall, seeing in there Dracula’s own blood bank, ready to bleed them dry. So we have been hearing for some time now. A case in point: The coming of pricey property developer with a celebrity of some notoriety – read: leaked sex videos – as poster girl.
Unresolved questions over land conversion notwithstanding, a council resolution was railroaded to favour the developer. Not so much, it turned out, in recognition of the volume of investments the city would get, or of the potential jobs generated for the citizens.
As for the promised gratuity to each of the honourable aldermen. And indeed reported to be delivered through the chair of the comite de festejos. Some wacky-wacky corniness intended for effect there, if you get the drift.
The catch though – and that mayhaps why this hush-hush affair blew all over town – was that the age-old doctrine of honour among thieves was…well, dishonoured. So we hear that the pie presented for partaking was all of P1 million.
But some of the partakers were smarter – they got the thicker slices of P120-K and P100-K, than the others – who were discontented with their P50K or P35K crumbs. Bad as that was, badder still was the discovery that the committee chair, and his supposed mentor, sequestered for themselves P2 million from the deal, over and above their slices in the P1 million pie for the group.
So new, yet so corrupt. So it was said of the alderman. So in-character with his moniker. So it was said of the neophyte’s mentor, referencing to some sea creature embodied by the Davy Jones character in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
Yes, the Goo-gooland that was the city in its good government past has sunk to Gulang – Filipino jargon for crafty, cunning, deceitful, devious, dishonest, duplicitous, scheming, sly, tricky – in its misgoverning present.
No wonder, talks of some comeback gain not only currency but also credibility all around the city.
