BF the hero

After he lost the Marikina mayoralty elections of 2022, Bayani Flores Fernando, the legendary construction magnate-politician, prepared himself for a life of ease and music, retirement and senior citizenship.

BF was massively cheated in the mayoralty elections of May 2022, with a uniform 20/80 ratio of the votes in all precincts, including his.

BF installed grab bars, walkways and an elevator in his towering concrete house in his home city. He even planned to relocate the master bedroom from the second floor to the ground floor. His sprawling sala doubled as a studio for weekly jam sessions with his musically inclined friends. Its acoustics was topnotch, equipped with the best in sound production and recording.

Late morning last Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, BF was supervising some minor repairs on his roof when he accidentally stepped on a polycarbonate roofing that apparently had been weakened by incessant rains. He fell, hitting his head on the concrete pavement. Bloodied, he was rushed by Rescue 161 to nearby Quirino Memorial Medical Center. At 12:36 p.m., he was declared dead on arrival. Born July 25, 1946, he was 77.

BF’s widow, former Marikina mayor Marides Carlos Fernando, announced her husband’s passing “with great sadness.” “Bayan,” she said, “was a man of vision, political will and action as he left his own brand of leadership and good governance.”

“As a family man, he will be greatly missed and remembered as a loving husband, father and grandfather. We ask for your prayers during this difficult time in our life,” said Mayora Marides.

Thus ended one of the most amazing sagas of a tycoon-politician in the Philippines.

BF finished mechanical engineering from Mapua Institute of Technology. In 50 years, he built a mega fortune under his BF Construction conglomerate. He was a quality builder of industrial plants, highways, railways, airports, railway stations, modern skyscrapers, schools and high-end residences. He built the Philippines’ first all-steel structure for a skyscraper, the Rufino Pacific Tower.

It is managing and building cities and metropolises that BF is better known for.

The son of the first post-war mayor of Marikina, Gil Fernando (1946-51,1955-59), BF served as its 7th hizzoner, 1992 to 2001. He was succeeded by Marides as mayor, for nine years, 2001-2010.

BF transformed Marikina from a backwater bedroom community and struggling shoe manufacturing town into a modern city by December 1996. He cleared sidewalks of debris, illegal vendors and vagrants. He removed or relocated squatters, instilled discipline among its residents and curbed criminality almost overnight.

Marides, for her part, nurtured her husband’s reforms in Marikina. She was so good, she ranked 7th best in the world among 800 cities vying for the coveted the World Mayor Prize.   Educated at UP (hotel and restaurant management) and Cornell, Marides bested 11 cities from Asia, making Marikina the best city in Asia in 2008.

BF became chairman of the Metro Manila Development Authority, June 5, 2002-Nov. 25, 2009, secretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways, Jan. 15, 2003-April 15, 2003 and Marikina congressman, June 30, 2016-June 30, 2022.

It was as MMDA chief where BF gained greater national stature as a figure of good governance and competence in public service.

“Chairman Fernando used scientific and practical approaches in his quest to solve the problems of Metro Manila,” said incumbent MMDA chief Don Artes. “A man of few words, Fernando was known to be a workaholic and a disciplinarian among MMDA employees.”

BF was behind the rapid bus lanes and the “Metro Gwapo” campaign, “transforming the National Capital Region into a livable metropolis.” To solve the national capital’s crippling traffic problem, BF build pedestrian bridges and U-turns at major intersections, favoring the circular pattern popular in cities abroad to promote smooth traffic flow. To discipline pedestrians, steel barriers were erected at center islands of major roads, with signs announcing “People Died Here While Crossing.”

The MMDA said Fernando “used scientific and practical approaches in his quest to solve the problems of Metro Manila.”

“A man of few words, Fernando is known to be a workaholic and a disciplinarian among MMDA employees,” said the agency managing 17 cities and towns as a region.

The Department of Public Works and Highways recalled how Fernando removed obstructions in national roads during his stint as secretary.

“Secretary BF applied his no-nonsense approach when he assumed leadership of the DPWH and initiated the removal of obstructions and prohibited uses within the right-of-way of national roads,” the DPWH said.

Former senator Richard Gordon, BF’s runningmate in the 2010 presidential elections, said Fernando “lived up to his name, Bayani. A worthy people’s leader, with ambition and vision for our country.”

“He was a hard worker and expected that ethic from his co-workers. He led by a code of discipline as he believed that values are the sure pathways to human development,” Gordon said. “We respected each other as transformers and not transactional leaders.”

“We tried to give an example or measure of what our people can be; proud, dignified, not through handouts or doleouts but through a hold-on, fight-on, self-reliant people,” Gordon said.

“We ran together because we offered choice, a track record of good governance and not empty, meaningless popularity. He and I knew it was almost quixotic. We refused to fear, be mediocre or to suffer in silence or be complicit,” Gordon said.

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Tonight, Tuesday, as chairman of the Manila Overseas Press Club, I host the first ever “Philconsa Night and Senate Night” at the Fairmont Ballroom, before a soldout crowd of 250 guests, with Senate President Migz Zubiri and House Speaker Martin Romualdez as speakers.

It’s the first time four institutions of democracy – the Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa), the Senate, Congress and the Fourth Estate get together to mark the nation’s achievements in democracy and help chart its future.

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