The Covid-19 pandemic has not spared Calapan City. As of 13 September 2021, Calapan has a total cumulative count of 2,282 positive cases, with 91 active cases, 2,111 recoveries, and 69 deaths. That is 2,282 lives directly impacted by Covid, and 69 lives painfully taken away. One life is one too many, and Calapan desperately needs to beat Covid.

As a private citizen, Bim has been actively leading civil society’s partnership with national and local governments in the fight to strengthen healthcare systems against Covid. He constructed world-class private and public hospitals providing additional 1,250 beds and over 20,000 sqm in out-patient department facilities. He also built testing centers and isolation facilities in Tarlac and Laguna, including the 25,000 sqm Mega Covid Isolation Facility Laguna for Region 4A.

This is the kind of effective leadership Bim intends to bring to Calapan as the pandemic rages on. His experience in quickly mobilizing resources and executing cost-effective Covid response projects will benefit Calapan’s struggling healthcare system to fight this (and future) pandemics.

With Covid compounding Calapan’s existing problems, the city needs an “all hands on deck” attitude to leadership. Where the Vice Mayor tends to be called a “spare tire,” usually taking a step back and facilitating passage of ordinances in the city council, Bim knows this will no longer do in these times. The people of Calapan will need and expect more from their vice mayor.

Bim envisions a more active, involved, and engaged leadership role for the Vice Mayor to address the unique challenges facing Calapan. Bim plans to productively support the elected Mayor and the rest of the city government in addressing the city’s fiscal constraints – with the city’s annual budget just barely at Php 1 billion – through creative resource mobilization in collaboration with the private sector and national government agencies.

Bim aims to bring his robust private sector experience to bear in augmenting the city’s funds and making the most use of them in rebuilding the city. Bim also plans to develop Calapan’s hurting sectors: from health and educational facilities like hospitals, clinics, testing centers, and classrooms, to commerce like public markets and spaces for private establishments, and infrastructure, as with roads, bridges, flood control and mass housing projects. All these will be undertaken with due regard to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

This is how Bim sees genuine leadership as Vice Mayor: as an active re-builder of Calapan City.