Through his
vision, Puerto Princesa was the first city in the Philippines, and one
of the first in the world, to order the tricycle taxis to convert to LPG
(liquid petroleum gas), a clean burning, environmentally friendly fuel.
Puerto Princesa is also the home of a model jail, which is run by the inmates.
They grow their own food. They attend classes, play in a band, and
compete in sports. Their families are allowed to visit. Cells
are open during the day. And the city saves money because at night,
there are only three armed guards.
Mayor Hagedorn
established public Montessori to cater to the needs of poor but deserving
students. He built 300 schools and education centers. He established
7 satellite hospitals in rural locations, dispensing free medicine for
common illnesses. He also built libraries to help promote literacy.
The last Saturday of June each year is set aside as the annual Feast of
the Forest, which culminates in a community based tree planting exercise.
Through this program, nearly two million trees have been replanted.
According to
Mayor Hagedorn, “Our goal is to be a model city in sustainable development.”
His entire administration has been focused on his Oplan Linis plan, which
is composed of six parts: cleanliness beautification, sanitation, save
the sea, save the air, and information and education.
Mayor Edward
Hagedorn was not always the progressive angel and champion of the poor
that he is today. In his youth, Hagedorn was a member of the Axis
gang, with a reputation for street fighting and violence. Later,
he was called the Juengteng king of Palwan. Juengteng was an illegal
form of gambling, a lottery with more than one drawing per day. The
allure of easy money was too irresistible to the country’s poor, 80% of
whom exist on less than two US dollars per day.
When he ran
for Mayor the first time, the Catholic Bishops of Puerto said that they
would support him if he promised to put an end to illegal gambling.
Hagedorn agreed. After he won, he made good on his promise.
Now, there is no Juengteng in Puerto.
Ecology has
been a central focus of Mayor Hagedorn’s programs. To protect the
oceans, he has put a stop to many of the destructive fishing techniques
such as trawling, dynamite fishing, or cyanide fishing.
Ending illegal
gambling displaced 5000 juengteng workers. A modern day Robin Hood,
Mayor Hagedorn put them to work as watchers of forests and coastal areas.
The forest watchers have cracked down on poaching and logging operations.
Patrolling the oceans has dramatically decreased the illegal fishing practices,
and has had the added benefit of driving off pirates. Fishermen who
were once destroying the environment were given micro financing for crab
fattening and fish farming.
Mayor Hagedorn
flew over the hills in a helicopter to see the damaging effects of slash
and burn farming, which was destroying the city’s forests. Shocked by the
devastation that he saw, he went on the radio and threatened the farmers,
ordering them to desist from what they were doing and come down out of
the mountains. About 1,000 families came down. Now he had to
find employment for 1,000 families to replace the income they had lost
or else they would go back to slash and burn. He checked with his
financial department who told him they had no budget for such a large employment
project. There was money in the calamity fund, however. So,
he asked the legal department if he could declare a calamity based on slash
and burn farming. They basically said there was no provision to that
effect. His next question was if there was any legislation that specifically
said he couldn’t declare a calamity based on slash and burn farming.
There wasn’t. “OK, I’ll take the risk.” He said.
The Mayor’s
team decided that the families were using slash and burn techniques because,
without equipment it was the easiest way to plant. Mayor Hagedorn authorized
the city government to buy modern equipment and petrol for the families.
He then told them, “The first harvest is free. After that, you will eventually
have to pay off the loan.”
The Mayor is
constantly reaching into his own pocket to give money to the poor, needy,
and deserving. “Salaries from Manila are often delayed by several months.”
Explained the Mayor. “So, I pay my staff out of my pocket.”
The tangible
benefits which Mayor Hagedorn has brought to his city are many, almost
too numerous to name: new highways, schools, housing projects for squatters,
increased aid to indigenous people….The list goes on. Nearly as important
is the intangible effect of good government. As a visitor to the city you
will immediately realize that the people of Puerto Princesa are some of
the happiest people imaginable.
Nearly every
two weeks, the Mayor’s office plans some type of public event, such as
sports competitions, spelling bees, and of course festivals featuring traditional
singing and dancing. The Puerto Princesa dancers and the city choir
find themselves working almost full time, entertaining locals and honored
guests. The Philippine dance presentation is a spectacle that you
would not want to miss. The program reflects the various ethnicities
which make up the Philippine character. It is both rare and refreshing
to find a country in the process of modernization which so whole-heartedly
embraces its tribal past. In the dance presentation, there is a brief
duel between Spaniards and locals. The Spaniards don’t fare so well,
but after three hundred years of colonization, it is permissible to have
a laugh at their expense.
Many of the
traditional songs deal with the beauty of the natural environment and fall
in line with mayor’s focus on conservation. The mayor himself gets
up and sings, his genuine emotion expressed in his song.
The Mayor is
accessible to both his constituents and visitors. An anecdote which
people like to tell about him is: during one of his reelection campaigns,
Mayor Hagedorn made a promise to God that if he won, he would quit smoking.
He hasn’t smoked since.
A member of
our team asked if there was any danger of malaria in the tribal area we
were planning to visit. The Mayor laughed. “Don’t worry about malaria.
I postponed it.”
It is no wonder
that Puerto Princesa tourism has grown from 12,000 in 2002 to 148,000 in
2006. For all of his successful implementation of progressive programs,
Mayor Hagedorn was the recipient of the UN Global 500 Award. He was
only the second Asian leader to receive this much coveted international
honor.
Streetwise
Philippines - A
Guide To Living, Retiring, Working and Doing Business in The Philippines - It would be easy to call this an 'Insiders Guide To Meeting Women
in the Philippines,' but it is much, much more than that. Yes, there
are really high quality women in the Philippines if one knows where to
look but more importantly one can live a quality lifestyle here, even learn
to make a better than average income. One just needs to be streetwise
and know where to look and where to be, which is why I wrote this report.
Why try to find a needle in a haystack? I'm giving you a map of the
territory. |
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