From mayor to president?

Here’s another paradigm shift we should seriously consider, as we continue to slowly get caught up in election fever and prepare to welcome a new administration in 2010. Shouldn’t we begin exploring the idea of promoting local chief executives to the nation’s highest position?

Actually, this isn’t much of a paradigm shift because on a number of occasions we have as an electorate considered local executives as potential presidents. Alfredo Lim, mayor of Manila in the early 1990s, was a major presidential candidate in 1998 who rode on the wave of his perceived excellent stewardship of the country’s political capital. About thirty years before him, Arsenio Lacson, also mayor of Manila, was similarly viewed as a serious contender in a future presidential elections.

Also in 1998, Lito Osmeña, governor of Cebu province, was another serious presidential contender. Osmeña’s selling point was that he was able to preside over Cebu’s "boom" years with his pro-business and pro-growth outlook and he was going to take that same outlook with him if and when elected to Malacañang.

Of course, the candidate eventually elected in 1998 was Joseph Estrada, who cut his teeth in politics transforming the sleepy municipality of San Juan into a residential and commercial hub. One hallmark of the Estrada reign was the thorough cementing of the municipality’s roads in a manner unmatched by any other Metro Manila mayor. Of course Estrada moved from being mayor to senator and vice president before finally winning the presidency, yet it was his achievements as mayor that were most often referred to as proof of his capabilities during his presidential campaign.

The logic of looking to mayors and governors as future presidents is simply unassailable. In fact, except for the fact that a senator is elected nationwide, the same way a president is elected, there is on the surface greater logic at looking at mayors and governors rather than at senators as presidentiables.

How does the mayor or governor set his agenda? How does he get his vice mayor and the council to support him? How does he work within his budget or, if necessary, impose new revenue generating measures?

How does he entice investors to his city or province? How does he manage his limited human as well as financial capital? How does he work to define areas of growth, his priorities, budget for education, health care, peace and order, etc?

All these a senator doesn’t do – and yet we look to senators by default as the leading contenders for a position that does on a national scale what a mayor or a governor does on a smaller scale. Now why is that?

Maybe the answer lies – other than the nationwide constituency mentioned above – in the fact that senators, by virtue of their positions, have an automatic national audience as well as an agenda that is national in scope. While a mayor or a governor may look out of place discussing foreign affairs, or global trade, or even human rights, a senator would look perfectly suited doing the same.

JPEPA? Which mayor or governor has made his or her views known on JPEPA? What about the intimidation being exerted by some government officials on media, which mayor or governor has spoken out on that? Should the VAT on petroleum products be eliminated entirely? Ask that of a senator and you can get an hour-long lecture; ask that of a mayor and you may only get a shrug of a shoulder. Ask a mayor or a governor about Joc Joc or ZTE, Estrada’s pardon or the Marcos burial and chances are you’d find the local official evasive if not outright mum.

Maybe that’s it – we haven’t heard really competent mayors or governors speak out on national issues because they are so concentrated on issues that concern their towns or cities or provinces. And so they remain unknown outside their localities. Unless they’re a Belmonte, who used to be Speaker of the House, or a Panlilio, whose "other" job as a priest is what made him controversial from the beginning, or a Gordon or a Binay.

The point is, we have never ever elected a local executive to the presidency. In contrast, its longer political history properly taken into consideration, the United States has elected so many big city mayors and even small state governors, some of whom have done well, others not so. Of course we know that George W. Bush was governor of Texas, and Bill Clinton before him governor of Arkansas. There was Ronald Reagan, governor of California, and before him Jimmy Carter, governor of Georgia.

Before them, Rutherford Hayes was Ohio governor before his election to the presidency in 1877; Grover Cleveland was elected president after his term as New York governor in 1885; William McKinley was Ohio governor from 1892-1896 before becoming president; Theodore Roosevelt was New York governor from 1898-1900 before becoming vice president; Woodrow Wilson was New Jersey governor from 1911-1913 before becoming president in 1913; Calvin Coolidge, president from 1923-1929, was former governor of Massachusetts, and Franklin Roosevelt was New York governor from 1929-1933.

Indeed, there seem to have been more US presidents who stepped up to the position of chief executive from a state-level executive position than those elected from the US Senate – a clear indication that in some political jurisdictions there is no default thinking that the Senate is the best reservoir of future presidents.

Isn’t it time for us to be more conscious of what could very well be a serious limitation in our search for new leaders?

Maybe the answer to the oft-heard comment "Wala na bang iba?" is simply to broaden our horizons and see who among our governors and mayors may have the "it" to be president.