None of the existing management systems, programs and projects have been subjected to thorough review to see whether or not they have enabled the local people to take part in the planning and execution of the city’s development programs and projects.
The participatory approach to governance and managing development programs has not been given a serious discussion in the level of policy and decision-makers, nor given a chance in some specific programs and projects.
Instead the city’s programs and projects remain the exclusive turf of government officials and their staff, political appointees and special consultants who commonly see the people as mere recipients or beneficiaries of programs than as co-planners and implementers.
In short, the city’s policy direction remains the same as it has been for decades. It has never gone through a process of transformation to reflect local objective conditions and the aspirations of the people.
Its direction and programs have thus fit the interests of national and local powers that be, and never those of the property-less and powerless.
Problematic City Development Program
If one analyzes the questions raised by different sectors on the Leonardia administration, it appears that the core problem is the administration’s development program and strategy.
This is the main issue that keeps Bacolodnons guessing. This is the same issue that makes the Leonardia administration agonize, albeit in a concealed manner, in pushing for the “rebuilding” of Bacolod, if at all it is sincere in its commitment.
A development program is a blueprint for total human development, and entails not just the usual pump-priming activities like physical infrastructures, and other traditional services; collection of taxes and other revenues; and delivery of some social services, among others.
More importantly, it is where the objective conditions of the people, their needs, anxieties, fears and aspirations, and the ways and costs of realizing them, are clearly and substantially defined.
It also defines the people’s participation in planning and implementation of its programs.
It is true that the Leonardia administration has advanced its platform, loosely labeled as “Rebuilding Bacolod”.
Based on its planning and development documents, the State of the City Addresses (SoCAs), and flagship program, the “Rebuilding” of Bacolod means nothing more than turning it into a “Premier City in the Philippines.” It is no different from Leonardia’s 1995-98 thrust.
The “Premier City” project is a national government thrust of turning cities and other urban centers into havens of big business, expats, big landlords and technocrats. This means more infrastructures, conversion of public lands for commercial and industrial uses, industrial free zones, rising costs of living standards, intensification of labor problems – therefore constricting space for the city’s 260,000 urban poor and the thousands more of would-be urban poor migrating from the poor and war-torn countryside.
The platform however carries mostly motherhood statements, loaded with equivocal meaning and open-ended like “most livable city”, “premier city”, “modern urban center”, and “dynamic center for economic growth”. Some of its parts even look like a shop list, outlining in broad strokes what to do and what not.
