Three-term Marikina mayor and long-time Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairman Bayani “BF” Fernando, a politician by inclination but a mechanical engineer by training, climbed the roof of his house to make repairs last Friday, fell and sustained head trauma and did not survive the fall. He was 77.
The utterly mundane circumstances of his passing sent shockwaves across his circle of family, friends and colleagues far beyond the city boundaries of Marikina, his hometown, whose economic future and political fortunes he served and helped determine from 1992 to 2001.
Fernando demanded discipline of his constituents, this brand of governance so successful it allowedhis hometown to transition to cityhood while he was mayor in 1996, transforming the village of mostly leather shoe craftsmen and factory workers into a thriving entrepreneurial community of disciplined taxpayers.
His brand of governance was not lost on Malacanang who then put him in charge of eight cities and nine municipalities that comprise the MMDA where, like the disciplined political person that he is, he would not hesitate to confiscate food stuff and other goods sold by itinerant sidewalk vendors and destroy them remorselessly before their eyes to drive home the point.
The town mayor who introduced the pink fence and pink urinals across Metro Manila would not mind being called an autocrat some of the time in his now greater quest to make the sprawling metropolis under his care into a truly livable metropolis. He once despaired the government would allot him only P250 million to get the job done when his predecessor had a budget P100 million more than was given him years prior.
And for those who were perplexed by what this man apparently infatuated by the color pink and what he was doing with it as chief metropolitan dictator told a nonplussed television broadcaster that his favorite color was actually baby blue.
“I am an engineer, I am a practical person,” he said. When he quickly added that he likes wearing women’s perfume “to attract women” constituents and keep them to the disciplined side of the road, that brought out a guffaw so loud the television audience must have chuckled.
Which brings us to the subject of Bayani Fernando the Congressman who served his country from 2016 to 2022 and who would charm a national audience as one of three singing legislators.
Fernando wrote the lyrics to the song Paglalambing that he himself sang as part of the MMDA’s Metro Gwapo program, but mostly in hopes of helping build the character of the Filipino and the wish that he learns to live in a city as lovely as metropolitan Manila less the blight that some of its parts have become.
Much had been said of Fernando as public servant, disciplinarian, science believer, father, friend and transformer of communities, and they are all good. We believe in the tenets he lived by and the values he prized while breaking bread with us one day each week at Tuesday Club.
Here was this man who was prudent, who would not shake your hand as a form of greeting post pandemic, preferring only to pump fist instead, and would love nothing simpler than sharing a laugh over breakfast with 20-odd other politicians, journalists, public relations persons, lawyers, artists, academicians and many others, but would not hesitate to climb a roof to make repairs and get the job done.
We all miss him already.
Postscript
Ang dasal ko ay mapansin mo, maliit na alay sa’yo
Nang magsupling and pangarap kong maging liyag ang puso mo
Pagibig mo ang lakas ko, ito ang paglalambing ko
From the song, Paglalambing. Lyrics written by Bayani Fernando
