The Official Website of Jejomar C. Binay

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I am not an economist but in my 20 years as Mayor of Makati I have learned three insights:

One, it is the people that make the economy work: investors, entrepreneurs, managers, professionals and workers. But those people won’t come and those already here will leave if our society keeps failing.

How do we bring them here and keep them here?

Mainly by promoting peace and the rule of law, which cannot be done by a government that does not have the people’s mandate.

By working with business, not against it.

By maintaining the dignity of our democratic institutions.

Two, it is government that makes society work: protects investments, shares the vision of entrepreneurs and its own vision with them, inspires managers with inspired governance, upholds the dignity of the professions, and invests in social programs to invest workers with good health and good education.

Three, it is by being better than others – in attracting investments, producing goods and providing services – that the economy grows. And society prospers.

After nine years under the Arroyo administration, we need to install a government that will redeem our people’s dignity by making our economy work.

If every time the numbers on NEDA’s charts grow, the amount of food on our table shrinks – the economy is not working at all. It means the economy is being kept afloat by the suffering of our people.

The only way for any economy to work is for government to provide a healthy environment for business, where they can compete fairly among themselves – and not with government. This is how the world’s most progressive economies work. This is how Makati’s economy works.

What we need is to install a government that will redeem our people’s dignity by ensuring that all of them receive their rightful share of the prosperity of a progressive economy.

A government that despises its people neglects their health and their education. Such a government makes them fall in line where they can for cheap medicine and cheap rice.

A government whose core value is dignity ensures that every child grows up in good health and with good education so they will become productive, progressive, even prosperous members of society.

This is how prosperity is shared in civilized societies around the world. This is how prosperity is shared in Makati.


A city is a country. The problems local government officials contend with are as grave as those that confront a national government. A mayor is faced with problems that bother countries, and presidents. Crime prevention, drug addiction, infrastructure maintenance, unemployment, economic crisis. Makati has been recognized as the financial center since the 1970s. But at the time of the EDSA Revolution of February 1986, the municipal government was bankrupt.		"...it is the people that make the economy work."

Public facilities and services could be likened to those of a third-class municipality, and not of the premier municipality. Some schools were run-down, had no functioning toilets, no light bulbs. Schools were crowded, and the public health program had been abused by municipal officials. Those who urgently needed medical care were not receiving the services; instead the clients of the program were mostly political supporters or relatives of municipal officials.

Having spent my student years as an activist and working as a human rights lawyer during the years of the dictatorship, I recruited to the local government people who shared my principle that government should be more responsive. It should look after the needs of the people. Being residents of the premier municipality, they deserve good service. To achieve this, we needed to change the way the government works.

We imposed fiscal discipline, streamlined revenue collection, refocused the priorities of government, and cancelled contracts that were clearly disadvantageous to the government.

After just one year, the Makati government already had a surplus. We then proceeded to use the revenues to provide better services for the people.

After 24 years, more students are staying in school, fewer residents worry about getting sick and an increasing number are now finding it easier to land jobs in the thousands of companies and business establishments.

After 24 years, our programs have had an impact on the standard of living of Makati families.

If you are, for example, a minimum wage earner but you have a Yellow Card that takes care of your medical bills and you don’t have to worry about tuition fees, school supplies and uniforms during the opening of classes, you run up savings for the family.

Since 1987, Makati’s annual revenue has remained on an upward trend, and the city has never incurred a budget deficit. Over the past two decades, Makati’s annual collection has grown at an average growth rate of 18.2 per cent, and the city has consistently posted a budget surplus each year.

What we did in Makati shows that if the government stands by solid principles, earns the trust of the stakeholders, and more importantly earns a legitimate mandate from the people, we can overcome any challenge.

There are of course those who question our emphasis on social programs.

Let me emphasize that social programs are not charity, they are a right of citizens.

Good health and good education are the two essential aspects of a civilized society. Social programs are an investment, not an expense.

We really do not need to balance the interest of one sector over the other. We are one community with a shared interest in making our community safe, competitive, and socially-balanced.

We need to maintain Makati’s competitive advantage, and always be alert to other opportunities for growth.

We also need to ensure that the benefits of growth are felt by the people in terms of employment, economic opportunities, and quality public services in health and education.

Let me cite an example of how the Makati experience can be done on a national scale. Early on, we made a conscious decision to prioritize strategic investments. These are investments that will provide benefits in several areas, and will address problems in several areas.

We gave priority to education. And not just simply education but education for employment. We believe this would address the problems of unemployment, and the concern of the business sector about the lack of skilled local manpower.

"What we need is to install a government that will redeem our people’s dignity..."

We partnered with the private sector on several programs and after less than ten years, the graduates of these programs have 100 per cent employability.

The presence of skilled manpower also provides an additional incentive for business, who will then continue to invest in Makati.

We irrigate the remaining 1.4 million irrigable farmlands nationwide. It will immediately create jobs in the countryside, where jobs are most needed, even as it increases the value of farmland to a level that would attract foreign direct investments in mechanization, modern farming technology and fertilization. My estimate is up to ten times. My basis: irrigated land in Nueva Ecija costs P1 million per hectare; non-irrigated in Samar costs P100,000.

We can induce investments in geothermal power. That is cheap and clean power that foreign direct investors are looking for now. US President Obama himself has subscribed to the idea that renewable energy is the next frontier of global economics.

What are the ancillary benefits of these strategic investments: it will induce a lot of urban poor people to go home to their provinces since there are jobs available.

We will be able to decongest cities and other urban centers, stimulate provincial economies, improve the fiscal position of local government units.

We also free Local Government Units from their dependence on Malacañang, which disburses Internal Revenue Allotments in exchange for political commitments from local officials.

Mga kaibigan,

Karamihan sa atin ay hirap sa buhay ngayon, ngunit laging buo ang ating pag-asa na ang ating mga anak ay lalaking malusog at may pinag-aralan.

Ngunit ano ang naging buhay natin sa nakaraang siyam na taon?

Isang pambansang ekonomiya na umuunlad lang sa report ng NEDA, ngunit hindi nararamdaman sa mga lamesa ng mamamayan.

Laganap ang gutom at hirap; laganap ang sakit, maraming kabataan ang hindi makapag-aral, at yung mga nakapagtapos naman ay hirap makakuha ng trabaho.

Paano na ngayon maililigtas ang ating bayan?

Kailangang itatatag ang isang gobyerno na tutubos sa ating dangal. Titiyakin nito na lahat ng mamamayan ay tatanggap ng kani-kanilang karampatang ginhawa mula sa isang maunlad na ekonomiya.

May solusyon, may pag-ahon, may bukas pa. Naniniwala ako na gaganda ang buhay.

Salamat po.