By Johnny Dayang
DAVAO City mayor Sara Z. Duterte-Carpio hogged the headlines years ago when on July 1, 2011 she physically mauled a stubborn city fiscal who pushed the execution of a demolition order despite her plea for postponement.
Two years later, she shaved her hair on Oct. 14, 1915 as a gesture of support for the popular proposals and demand that her father run for the presidency. Three months later, on Jan. 25, 2016, she again shaved her head to honor and mourn the 44 Special Action Force (SAF) commandos massacred in the unfortunate Mamasapano fiasco.
Beyond her feisty persona, Mayor Sara manages Davao City with firm but humane righteousness. When she first assumed the city’s mayoralty in 2010, she did not dilly-dally in delisting over 11,000 casual employees supposedly hired by his father-predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte.
In giving way to the development of a key coastal road in her city, originally conceived by her father, she demolished illegal structures but compassionately relocate the displaced residents to safer areas, far from the risky Davao River banks where they lived in shanties for decades.
Currently, an important agenda of Mayor Sara Duterte is addressing the city’s worsening transport and traffic problems which have progressively been choking the city streets in the last decade.
Under the plan, a mass transport system will be introduced and public utility jeeps with franchises that are yet to expire, will be restricted to suburban routes with subsidies extended to their driver-operators.
Obviously, her transport agenda has been triggered by the debilitating EDSA traffic chaos in Metro Manila, along with the heavy costs it imposes on health, business, mobility and other serious concerns.
With no traffic jams in Davao’s central business district and major thoroughfares in the future, travel in and out of the city proper will be fast, efficient and pleasantly convenient.
The lady mayor’s creative mind, however, is also exploring other options and initiatives she strongly feels will address the city’s long-term concerns. For instance, she sticks to the policy that local peace talks can bring in the desired stability in remote areas of the city as opposed to violent confrontations.
In terms of planning, she takes into consideration issues of population dispersal, livelihood and employment, social support systems, and transparency as a way of connecting her program to the people who have always believed in the wisdom of her initiatives.