Living in the City

"Marikina and seven other urban areas have been declared model cities, making them a good place to live in, work in and do business with", according to The Philippine Star, a local broadsheet. This after having "complied with the Public Governance System and Scorecard (PGS), which was patterned after the 'balanced scorecard' of Harvard Business School. PGS measures a local government unit's competitive infrastructure, responsible citizenship, growth in the per capita gross domestic product and productivity". I am proud to say that I am a citizen of Marikina. This "city of mabubuting loob", where I reside belong to that group "dubbed as Dream Cities", aiming to, soon become Southeast Asia's model city in terms of competitiveness. I bet ya! Marikina can compete in terms of good governance, superior public service and taking care of the entrepreneur. Hep hep hooray! From the Ibanag Marikina dweller! Cheers!

Marikina City will soon enjoy the fruits of a wireless mesh network . And why not? Marikina has always been reputed to initiate things ahead of the rest. Trailblazing governance. That is Mayor Marides Fernando's style. And for good. Wasn't it long ago that Marikina was known to be Little Singapore? And now especially at the Municipio most employees try to speak English as an initial step towards mimicking the bright side of Singapore. More than a year ago I read this article about a company called Tropos which seemed to have pioneered in providing the technology to local governments in the U.S. And I immediately recognized that this would be something our Mayor will eagerly do. And so here it is now!!!