Editorial

IN a time when governance is often reduced to spectacle or spin, few public servants in recent memory have embodied the raw grit, streetwise intellect, and reformist urgency of Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso. As he takes the podium as the Rotary Club of Manila’s first guest-of-honor and speaker for Rotary Year 2025–2026, it is more than just a ceremonial gesture — it is a clarion call to reexamine what leadership in public service should look like in the post-pandemic Philippine landscape.

Isko’s presence before Asia’s First Rotary Club is both fitting and symbolic. Here is a man who, despite rising from the slums of Tondo, ascended not through privilege or pedigree but through perseverance and an instinctive grasp of urban politics. His — actor turned councilor, vice mayor, and eventually one of the most transformative mayors of the capital city — mirrors Rotary’s own ethos: self-transformation through service above self.

As mayor of Manila, Isko did not merely govern; he disrupted. He bulldozed decades-old illegal structures in Divisoria and revived historical landmarks like the Jones Bridge with a sense of civic pride many thought lost to time. He brought digital governance to a city mired in analog processes. In his administration, public service was not cloaked in rhetoric — it was visible in cleared streets, in-functioning public hospitals, and in the resuscitated Manila Zoo.

Yet it is not his projects alone that command attention — it is his politics of possibility. He governed Manila not as a manager of decline but as an architect of urban renaissance. He took seriously the idea that even the most neglected pockets of society could be centers of dignity, order, and progress. That he speaks today to a club of elite professionals, CEOs, diplomats, and Rotarians is a powerful reminder that leadership can come from anywhere — and speak to everyone.

To engage with Mayor Isko is to wrestle with deeper questions: What does effective urban governance look like in an age of digital disruption and climate vulnerability? How do we create public value in cities stretched by inequality, traffic, and fragility? What role must business, civil society, and clubs like Rotary play in partnership with the public sector? His appearance is not merely a chance to reminisce about the “Yorme” era — it is an invitation to move from admiration to collaboration.

And yet, perhaps the most cerebral challenge Isko poses to us today is not infrastructural, but philosophical: Are we still capable of imagining a more functional, inclusive, and inspiring city — and nation? In an era when cynicism often masquerades as wisdom, Isko’s story is an antidote. He reminds us that political imagination is not the privilege of the elite, but the responsibility of all. That governance is not about maintaining power, but about enabling lives.

The Rotary Club of Manila stands at a threshold this Rotary Year with the theme Unite for Good. In welcoming Mayor Isko Moreno to the fold of our weekly dialogue, we are not merely inviting a past mayor — we are welcoming a continuing idea: that public service, when done with authenticity and audacity, can still matter. That it is not too late to restore trust in institutions, in communities, and in each other.

Let this gathering be more than a luncheon and more than a lecture. Let it be a meeting of minds across sectors, stations, and stories — a communion of public purpose. Because when leaders like Isko speak, it is not only to recount where they’ve been — it is to awaken in us the urgency of where we must still go.