JASON GONZALES
It’s been 14 years since I ran away and joined the colorful circus that is local politics. I was in my 20s, wide-eyed, and like the cinematic P.T. Barnum, I was filled with “a million dreams for the world we’re gonna make.”
It’s no secret to the people near me that Randy David, UP professor and public intellectual, unknowingly started me on this journey. In my teens, I never missed his weekly column in the Inquirer. His ideas on modernity, the modernizing Filipino nation, and the role of the citizen in bringing these about stirred my imagination. In college, during breaks, I would find myself in the library to read up on the works of people Randy would write about—giants like Constantino, Weber, and Rorty. I was hooked! Of course, half the time, I was asleep with my right cheek pressed against the table and occasional drool pooled on the desk.
This life of independent study branched out to volunteer work as an attempt to give arms and legs to my youthful musings on Self and Nationhood. I remember volunteering for a house build of Habitat for Humanity in Quezon City. None of my friends would go with me, so I went solo with a bucket and spade. I joined a 4-day medical mission to a Hanunoo Mangyan village in the mountains of Mindoro. I first tasted election day work while volunteering for NAMFREL in the 2001 Philippine general elections.
I wanted to live a life of contribution. At the heart of this exploration was the growing feeling that politics was the most potent way for me to contribute given my interests and skillsets. Our political and electoral systems are flawed and broken in fundamental ways, and early on, I realized the value of an inside job. That our people are poor and ill-educated is both cause and consequence of this vicious spiral. It was on this ground that I wanted to offer my gifts.
In 2009, I decided to run for the City Council of Iloilo City as an independent candidate in the 2010 local elections. In two terms as Councilor, I authored legislation and pursued programs that sought to improve public education, raise liveability in the City, and expand environmental protection.
In 2016, I left the City and ran for Mayor of the Municipality of Lambunao. It was not an easy decision for me to make. For weeks, I reflected on it. I made a list of the pros and cons and weighed them again and then again. But still, I was restless. Perhaps God sits on that hill that cannot be reached by the legs of reason alone. I retreated into silence and sitting. Ultimately, I realized that my public life is a prayer dressed as a question: How can I serve in the largest possible way? This prayer has guided my life since.
In three years, Lambunao won multiple national distinctions, including the Seal of Good Local Governance (DILG), the Seal of Good Education Governance (Synergeia), the Presidential Award for Child-Friendly Municipalities (Council for the Welfare of Children), Most Resilient Municipality (3rd place, National Competitiveness Council), among others. I write this not to brag but to share with you what is possible. Awards are symbols of our striving as a people. And I continue to be proud of what we have accomplished as a community.
Today, I am serving my second term on the Provincial Board of the Province of Iloilo. I continue to advocate for reforms and improvements to our public school system. As Chair of the Regional Education Council and in partnership with the Province of Iloilo, we are currently implementing a literacy instruction training program to cover K-3 teachers in all 42 municipalities in Iloilo.
In this 14th year, I am grateful to see how government works through the prism of City, town, and province. But more than this, I am humbled to witness the entire human lifecycle unfold. As Mayor, I oversaw the operations of the municipal health center, which handled multiple births in a single week; attending baptisms was par for the course; I officiated the weddings of at least three couples every Tuesday morning (this was my favorite role as Mayor); I’ve long overcome the discomfort of peering into caskets and looking at the faces of dead strangers; conversations with the family they left behind are no longer awkward as I am mindful of setting the intention of bringing a comforting presence. Over sisig and beer, I pondered with a doctor-friend how our vocations of politics and medicine are twins, allowing us to travel with people from the cradle to the grave.
In my mind’s eye, my life as an elected official has been a slow and deliberate walk of encountering the Filipino. Parang isang mahabang pamamanhikan. I realize that those who mean to help must reach out. Often, I serve not from the comfort of my seat or my certainties but on my feet as I go about and ask the difficult questions. To ask what someone needs is to come from a place of humility. Here, I am inspired by the image of Pope Francis down on his knees, washing the feet of prison inmates carefully. It has been a profoundly personal journey of discovering our people’s fears, foibles, dreams, and grace in countless conversations, conflicts, and dialogues. In meeting them, I found pieces of myself.
The project of building our nation and our local communities remains unfinished. In the words of the writer Simon Sinek, this is the “infinite game.” And so is the smaller but equal project of building ourselves. Fourteen years hence, I’m still struggling to do both, having fun and picking up gems along the way.