LIKE a breath of fresh air, Mayor Isko Moreno is the new star of the local government scene. US Ambassador Sung Kim called him a rock star. I’d describe him as the media darling of the habagat season. Things are happening so fast the tweets, posts, SMSes and selfies can’t keep up.
Isko didn’t just happen. He sat it out under two mayors, tried to make a run for the Senate but failed. Now he’s winning public opinion with the simplest things – cleaning the streets, opening them up to traffic, what’s so hard about that? Isn’t that what the elected are supposed to do? Serve the public, be seen in public by the public as a working, serviceable public servant.
Isko didn’t just appear, he did his homework while waiting for his chance, he studied the science of government. He took a course in executive leadership at UP. In 2011 he was a scholar of the US State Department, joining an international visitors leadership program (on US mayors and local government). In 2012 and 2013 he attended Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government for a short course for emerging leaders and one on executive education. In the same year he was in Oxford, England, for its strategic leadership program. As an Asian, he said he wowed his classmates with his English and the amount of notes he took and the load of books he carried.
Unlike certain exceptional PH government scholars who lose themselves as TNT in a foreign country or who skip classes to shop or meet their relatives, Isko stuck to his lessons. You could tell if you knew the old Isko and compared him with the new, post-scholarships Isko. Now it’s time to pay back and establish an Isko-larship program for bright but financially challenged students.
He need not follow the example of President Duterte, who’s eternally bragging how he got by with grades never exceeding 75, 76, yet ending up as president of the Philippines. Who knows what Destiny has in store for this city mayor? Will his three-year stint be enough to pluck him out of City Hall and install him in Malacañang, like the ex-mayor of Davao City? Can he keep up the momentum, inspire continuing admiration among a population of jaded, cynical citizens, and show us how great and gorgeous the difference can be between a Manila taken for granted and a Manila rising to fulfill its dreams?
