Wayward Bacolod

What happened to Bacolod City?

How could a highly urbanized city that was in the top 5 of the annual ranking of the National Competitiveness Council's Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index crash to an embarrassing number 73 after only a few years?

How could a city that if slogans and propaganda are to be believed, is supposed to be “booming”, fail to back up its claims in an objective and scientific forum that uses a globally accepted framework for measuring competitiveness?

How could 72 other Filipino cities and municipalities, almost 40 of them categorized as lowly “component cities” rather than “highly urbanized”, exert more effort than the supposedly booming Bacolod City in submitting enough of the requirements to garner a higher score than this city that Bacoleños have been fiercely proud of?

Well, if the excuses are to be believed, the report is wrong and Bacolod is still booming but the crash happened because Bacolod City's officials did not submit the required data as they were allegedly too busy with bigger concerns. The people offering the excuse even had the gall to proclaim that if Bacolod had participated in the survey and submitted the required information, it would have “easily” made the top 5. The problem with that presumptuous claim was that they didn't submit anything to prove their claims so there is no scientific, statistical and objective proof that could back up their illusions of grandeur.

If Bacolod is truly booming and it is a shoo-in for a top 5 spot in the annual competitiveness ranking, why couldn't they submit the requirements that would bolster those claims and silence the critics? Is it because they were really too busy doing other more important things or did they deliberately fail because they were afraid that the data and the truth would contradict their empty slogan?

How could a highly urbanized city with a budget of hundreds of millions of pesos not spare a few thousand for staff that could ensure the submission of those requirements and metrics? How could the chief executive fail to give priority to these statistics that could make his slogan more meaningful when he can ask for an additional P47.3 million for “donations” from the city council? Can he please donate a portion of that fund earmarked for “donations” to pay for the salary of the people who could save Bacolod by coming up with the data that could prove that the city is indeed booming and not crashing?

The affairs, progress, and prosperity of Bacolod City is not a game. In fact, it is more important than a 3-unit undergraduate class but it seems like it is being run by a dropout. At least the students in such a class would spend sleepless nights just to submit the requirements for their grade so their parents who are spending their life savings on their tuition would know that the money is not being wasted on booze or drugs. If students who only have grades and their allowances on the line can do it, why can't the officials running this city, spending hundreds of millions of the taxpayer's money, not even care if they can prove whether or not they can pass or fail a test that compares their performance with the measured performance of other towns and cities in the country? If a college professor or a parent would never accept such lame and shallow excuses for failure, why should the people of Bacolod let such a negligent and irresponsible administration who apparently has an incomplete grade off the hook just because they came up with a cute but ultimately uncorroborated slogan?

Whichever way you look at it, a ranking drop of more than 50 points should be worrying for anyone, no matter what the excuse. Those who don't believe the lame excuse that the requirements were conveniently forgotten and not submitted would say that the facts and figures are simply showing the real state of the city. If we can all agree that any student who goes from ranking inside the top ten of his class to the bottom of the barrel would be suspected of having serious problems that would require an intervention, then the people of Bacolod have to make it their mission to find out if their city has a serious problem based on the facts and figures on hand.

Slogans and propaganda are one thing but measured performance indicators are another. The Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index measured all the towns and cities in this countries and the results of it's scientific and non-partisan survey it has found the leadership of Bacolod City to be seriously inadequate.

Are the people of Bacolod going to believe the uncorroborated hype and believe the lame excuses or are they going to use their brains and figure out the very simple solution that would nurse their beloved but obviously wayward child that had been showing great potential back into the right path?*

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