Christine Elaine M.

Honrade
L4A
Before Jesse Robredo became the mayor of Naga City, it faced many problems such as
poverty, corruption, inefficient public service, and gambling. However, these problems are
solved through the good governance practiced by Jesse Robredo, the good governance that most
politicians fail to practice.
One of the things that he did for Naga City is the groundwork for peoples participation to
thrive in the said city. During his first term as mayor (1988-1992), he formulated the Good
Governance Model which would serve as the template of all the peoples-participation-driven
programs being implemented in the city. This model consists of three elements: progressive
perspective, functional partnerships, and participation. It is based on Nagas collective
experience in managing its affairs.
While most politicians focus on the concept of a city for themselves in which they are
the only ones benefitting from the projects that they implement, Robredo envisioned a city for
the people where growth with equity is the paramount concern. He thus established and
encouraged partnerships with various sectors, ensuring that Nagas limited resources would be
augmented and even enhanced by private entities, including nongovernment and peoples
organizations.
Moreover, he did recognize the limitations of partnerships, arguing that at the
operational and practical level, partnerships have to occur between institutions and organized
groups, resulting often in the exclusion of the community at large, reducing them to a spectators
role in governance. He therefore advocated peoples participation to mainstream the
marginalized, and actively engaged them in governance by instituting. Participation, in effect,
served as the very foundation of the Good Governance Model.
From this model evolved award-winning programs, all of them institutionalized and
anchored on peoples participation. These are, among others, the i-Governance Program, Naga
City Peoples Council, Productivity Improvement Program (PIP), Urban Poor Development
Program, and Quality Universal Elementary and Secondary Education in Naga (QUEEN)
Program. He also instituted a People's Congress comprised of urban poor leaders, women's

groups, NGOs, etc. to participate in City Council discussions and help City Hall towards coming
up with viable solutions to the city's problems.
However, this concept is also contradictory to the concepts used by some public officials
since some of them do not really care about the woes of the marginalized.
Furthermore while some public officials contradict the idea of disclosing information
with regard to finance and budgeting because their deceitful acts will be known to everybody,
Robredo desires the transparency of information. Due to this, he implemented the i-Governance
Program. It is built on the bedrock principle of information opennesswhere government
actively discloses data to the various publics on local government finance, budgeting,
procurement, legislation, and service delivery. The key assumption is that citizens will take
advantage of the information made available to better engage their government. Under iGovernance, active disclosure is a defining characteristic of Nagas open-government regime,
which distinguishes it from the freedom of information bills that previous Congresses had failed
to pass.
Added to this in Robredos 19 years as mayor, he did not engage in "tokenism" but
tackled problems head on. He solved Naga City's traffic problem, relocated all squatters
especially those living in dangerous zones and provided them with decent housing, and published
the city's annual budget in the spirit of transparency. If an indigent person approached him, he
would usually refer him to the City DSWD or to the concerned city department head for
immediate action. This system was instituted so that people would not think that it was his
personal money that was used to help them unlike other officials who always give something to
anyone who begs for their help so that the people will have a positive view of them.
To sum, Jesse Robredos good governance paved the way into a well-established Naga
City.

Bordado, Jr. Gabriel Hidalgo. The legacy of Jesse Robredo. http://opinion.inquirer.net/77579/the-legacy-of-jesserobredo#ixzz3cfrTnMTS. Philippine Daily Inquirer. August 18, 2014. Web. June 10, 2015.
Mendoza, Oliver. The gospel of Jesse M. Robredo. http://warsawpe.dfa.gov.ph/index.php/2014-01-27-11-0655/137-remembering-jesse-m-robredo. Embassy of the Philippines, Warsaw, Poland. August 18, 2014. Web. June 10,
2015.