Global premier city in the making

The Honorable Eric Olivarez, a fully-equipped young man, with a bright outlook in life, administers and manages the affairs of Parañaque City. Eric owns multiple degrees in different academic fields: a Ph.D. in educational management; a Master's in Science and Management; an A.B. in history and political science from De La Salle University; and a B.S. in Nursing from the California State University of Los Angeles. He passed the board and registered as such in the Philippines.

He has a brilliant record as a lawmaker when he served as congressman of the First District of Parañaque. His getting elected as city mayor reflects the trust and confidence of the people in his competence and honesty to run the city government under his pledge of transparency, accountability, and genuine public service.

When he assumed office in July 2022 and did it with a bang, a manner that great leaders do. Given his credential as a consummate educator and reformist of young minds, he showed courage and novelty in running the affairs of the city government along with his vision of orderly and effective governance with a revamp of department heads of the city,

The policy slogan of Mayor Eric will go far and long for him to rule forever within the area of good governance under any jurisdiction by the will of the people — it is the Special Services Office's Project Eric (Exigent Respond for Indigent Citizens).

Both the young and needy are asking what does ERIC mean? Coincidentally, ERIC is a typical masculine name. It's an old Norse name derived from the Norse word "Eirikr" which means "forever ruler" or "always ruler."

Shortly after the city government defined its priorities, goals, and commitment to the delivery of basic services and promoting the general welfare of the city's constituents and the general public when unexpectedly came the global menace, the Covid-19 disease struck to threaten the survival of humanity itself. The best in men and institutions came out in the time of the worst situation.

The city reacted by applying the skills in meeting the requirements in the seal for good local governance competition launched by the Department of the Interior and Local Government. It paid off, in their performance in the areas of good governance: good financial housekeeping; disaster preparedness; social protection; peace and order; environment management, among others.

The city government performed splendidly in sharing with the global effort to counter and contain the menace of global Covid-19.

The Parañaque City's response to the Covid-19 pandemic was highlighted by its entry into the "digital norm" through the implementation of digital disbursements of social amelioration programs such as 4Ps, Paraña-cash and distribution of ayuda (assistance) in line with the vision of transparency in government transactions through information technology solutions; streamlining registration procedures and data encoding system of the City's Covid-19 vaccination programs.

Task Force Bakuna spearheaded by the Data Protection Office (created under Executive Order 2021-051) was designated to take charge of registration and validation of vaccine recipients, scheduling, notification, posting and information dissemination, data encoding, data record management, data encoding, data record management, issuance of vaccine certificate systems operation and data privacy.

Furthermore, the City of Parañaque has been relentless in fulfilling the commitment trends streamlining and simplifying all systems and procedures towards the promotion of transparency in transactions with the public and the prevention of graft and corruption in government, mandated by Republic Act 11032 or the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act.
(To be continued)