Adopt Jesse Robredo’s ‘servant leadership,’ Thomasians urged

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Camarines Sur third district representative Gabriel Bordado speaks in an advocacy forum commemorating the late Jesse Robredo's servant style of leadership. Photo by Ann Margaret De Nys.

A lawmaker has underscored the importance of people’s participation in government as exemplified by the consultative style of the late Jesse Robredo as mayor of Naga City and secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

Gabriel Bordado, representative of the third district of Camarines Sur, said Robredo’s legacy was the institutionalization of people’s participation in local government by creating the Naga City People’s Council.

The council allowed duly accredited nongovernment and people’s organizations to participate in the process of crafting ordinances and air their opinions, he said.

Bordado said the late Naga City mayor followed a style of “servant leadership,” where he maintained good relations with, and fair treatment of, his constituents.

“The ordinary people could readily approach him. Nakakapasok sa opisina niya ang mga ordinaryong taga-Naga [and] he entertained them, listened to their problems and gave them necessary advice. Doon nagsimula ang sistema ng kanyang pagiging servant leader and he went several steps further when he tried to institutionalize programs and projects,” Bordado said in a forum held in remembrance of Robredo last Aug. 15.

Francis Santos, Central Student Council (CSC) public relations officer, said Robredo’s governance should be adopted in the University’s central and local student councils.

Santos said the CSC would ensure collaboration and coordination with Thomasians through the “Kasangga Project Preaching,” where students can pitch their project ideas to the council.

Robredo served as mayor of Naga City in 1988 to 1998 and in 2001 to 2010.

In July 2010, he was appointed by President Benigno Aquino III as interior secretary, but his term was cut short by his untimely death in August 2012 in a plane crash off Masbate.

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