Rep. Tobias “Toby” M. Tiangco of the Lone District of Navotas City admits that he could have done better in school. Had he studied harder in grade school and high school at Xavier, or as a B.S. Management student at the Ateneo de Manila University, he is certain his grades would have been much higher than the numbers that have long gathered dust in his mother’s baul.

But today, the 44-year-old congressman who is credited for restoring the glory of flood-prone Navotas as the Fishing Capital of the Philippines knows one thing for sure: That at the end of his every term as a public servant—whether as city mayor or neophyte lawmaker—he could not have done any better, because he simply did his best.

“My brand of public service is total commitment,” Toby tells The Sunday Times Magazine in an exclusive interview. “It’s a total commitment that stems from an emotional attachment to Navotas and the Navoteños.”

He recalls that his paternal grandfather had very humble beginnings. The Tiangco patriarch was a kalesa driver (cuchero) and hot chocolate vendor (manlalako) in what was then a young coastal town. But with the wide sea of Navotas within reach, he seized the opportunity to fish and eventually gave his family a life of privilege.

“My father studied in the public schools of Navotas, but his siblings who were younger than him eventually had the opportunity to study in private schools, and so did we,” Toby continued.

“But none of that would have happened had it not been for the opportunity Navotas gave my grandfather; at ang naging suwerte niya na nasa tapat lang niya yung isda [and his luck that he could easily fish].

“So whenever I see the poor children of Navotas, I always think to myself that one of them could’ve been me; or that one of them could’ve even been my son. That’s my emotional attachment to this city, and why I am totally committed to uplifting the lives of the Navoteños.”

Torch pass
When then Mayor Toby Tiangco completed his three terms as keeper of Navotas in 2010, he had turned what was long considered as one of Metro Manila’s dirtiest municipalities into a first class city. Under his leadership, Navotas won such recognitions as “Cleanest and Greenest” municipality and city, and awards for maintaining peace and order, efficient police stations, and “Best Anti-Drug Abuse” and “Best Literacy” programs.

He left a lasting legacy of pride among Navoteños—pride of identity and pride of place—which placed the city and the name Toby Tiangco prominently on the national map.

“It wasn’t easy,” he relates. “I’ve always believed that government alone cannot solve problems on its own and needs the help of the people. But when I became mayor of Navotas, I realized that no one wanted to help government because they weren’t even proud to be Navoteños.”

His first course of action was to divide the city into blocks and thereafter assign a street sweeper for each area. The street sweeper was given an allowance to work during rush hours in the morning and the late afternoon and slowly but ingeniously, Toby was able to teach his constituents to be responsible for keeping their communities clean.

“When they’d leave their houses for work or school in the morning and come home at the end of the day, ang nakikita nila may taong nagwawalis [they would see someone sweeping the streets],” he explains. “So eventually, naisip na nila na ganoon pala ang tama [they realized that’s the right thing to do]. From then on they began to cooperate and we achieved the clean-up of Navotas together.”

With this as just one successful example of the maverick mayor’s projects, it came as no surprise when the Navoteños called for another Tiangco to take Toby’s place when he completed his three allowable terms in office.

They looked to Toby’s younger brother, John Reynald “John Rey” Tiangco, who had been quietly working in the background with projects for the youth of Navotas, mostly involving sports and education.

“Quiet” is an operative word when describing this particular Tiangco, who unlike his very expressive and outgoing brother is shy and reserved. If Toby speaks machine-gun style, John Rey talks like a sniper rifle.

“I was hesitant to run for mayor because of my personality,” John Rey recalls to The Sunday Times Magazine. “But I felt guilty to turn my back on the Navoteños especially since they wanted continuity from my brother’s administration.”

Then only 34 years old, John Rey joined his brother in his commitment to the people of Navotas and ran for mayor unopposed, just as Toby did for Congress. Clearly, the Navoteños were convinced that despite their differences in personality, the Tiangco brothers were both workers and had their best interest in mind.

Toby passed on the torch to his brother and was so glad he did.

Perfect 10
“If you would compare my first two years as mayor to John Rey’s first two years, admittedly, he had more projects than I did—and that’s on public record,” enthuses Representative Toby who actually shares the same birthday as his younger brother. They were respectively born on November 21, 1967 and 1972.

“Walang turo yan ha [I didn’t teach him],” he quickly adds. “I left him by himself, because when I first became mayor, they weren’t used to my style of leadership since I came from business. Sabi nila dapat mas politico daw ako [they said I should be more like a traditional politician]. But running the city professionally worked, so when John Rey took over—and he is also from the business sector—pinabayaan ko na siya [I let him be] because he had his own new ideas.”

Asked what these new ideas were, John Rey humbly enumerates what is actually a very impressive slew of projects.

With his brother Toby having successfully built a strong foundation for the city—one that is cleaner and greener, highly organized, and comprised of cooperative citizens—John Rey was able to devote his administration’s efforts and resources to what he deemed were the immediate necessities of the Navoteños.

“My administration is guided by the goal: ‘Itaas ang antas ng buhay ng Navoteño’ [To uplift the quality of life of the Navoteño],” he relates. “And these are in the areas of education, livelihood, housing and health.”

Teaching is a tool that, like Toby, John Rey utilizes to encourage individuals and communities to help themselves. To address the issue of unemployment, for example, he organized the Navotas Job Center, which he describes as a “one-stop shop” for new graduates. There, the youth of Navotas are guided on every possible aspect of landing a job: from how to write a resume to what to wear and how to conduct one’s self in an interview.

For those who had no opportunity to go to college, the mayor partnered with Tesda to build and run training centers where they can learn practical skills in construction (carpentry, welding, etc. ), hospitality (bartending, waitressing, etc.), and wellness (reflexology, grooming, etc.).

And for those who would like to put up their own businesses, John Rey devised a very unique lending scheme.

“Parang 5-6,” he says sniper rifle-style.

Using the local “pautang” model where the lender is relentless in collecting interest from the loaners—tracking them down to their homes and place of work if need be—John Rey is able to ensure that citizens who borrow money from government become responsible in using it for the right purpose and in paying back the loan.

“Hindi kasi puwedeng puro dole out [They can’t rely on dole outs],” he rightly points out. “So about 98 percent ng pautang namin bumabalik [of the loans are paid back to government].”
“Pero hindi kasing taas ng interes ng 5-6 ha! [The interest is not high as that of the notorious 5-6],” Toby swiftly interjects. “And John came up with a scheme where they are taught to pay interest and put aside money at the same time for savings.”

Obviously very proud of his younger brother’s achievements, the congressman excitedly completes the rest of the former’s laudable projects, citing over a thousand housing units constructed for citizens who were displaced by typhoons and fires, and for the first time in the history of Navotas, its very own hospital.

“The hospital is the single biggest project of the city of Navotas in terms of value and benefits to the Navoteños,” Toby boasts. “This is the city’s biggest achievement that even I wasn’t able to do in my 10 years as mayor.”

Naturally, when The Sunday Times Magazine asked him to rate John Rey’s first term as mayor, which comes to a close in 2013, the proud brother, without hesitation, declares, “Ten.”

Sensible siblings
Mayor John Rey of course acknowledges the benefits of having a congressman who is supportive of the local government’s projects in the achievements of his young administration. In this case, his older brother,

It was through Congressman Toby’s bills in the lower house for example that the soon-to-be completed Navotas General Hospital became possible.

“The Department of Health initially refused to issue Navotas a building permit because they said our citizens can easily go to Tondo General Hospital,” the representative relates. “But I argued that even if the hospital is nearby, the Navoteños are not first class citizens of Tondo, so we need our own hospital where they are sure to be the priority. I also said that there would be no money asked of the DOH for the construction of the hospital, and eventually we were given the permit.”

The lawmaker admits that 90 percent of the bills he authored as a neophyte were local bills for the benefit of the Navoteños because, like he said, he owes who and what he is to the city.

(On the national front, he co-authored the Kasambahay Bill, which is now in the Senate; and authored two bills—one on installing GPS devices to monitor buses and the other on the exclusion of Systems Loss in electricity bills—which are both awaiting hearings).

Aside from securing a construction permit from the hospital, Toby also passed a bill that will speed up the wheels of justice in Navotas through the establishment of a Regional Trial Court (RTC) and additional Municipal Trial Courts (MTC) in the city.

“Nakakaawa yung mga preso sa kulungan ng Tondo kasi punong-puno dahil wala kaming RTC. May MTC nga kami pero iisa lang. So you can imagine how long it takes before any case is heard,” he explains. “With the bill, we will soon have two MTCs and three RTCs, plus nine prosecutors.”

As for housing, the representative allocated a sizeable portion of his CDF or “congressional pork barrel” for additional housing units to supplement Mayor John Rey’s project.

But ever the sensible pair of siblings, Toby and John Rey devised a strict set of rules to ensure that those who have been given these 1,300-plus units deserve to live there. First, the entire family has to take a drug test; any member who comes out positive has to undergo rehabilitation, otherwise, the whole family will not be given a unit. Secondly, they assigned an administrator for every block of housing—much like a superintendent of a condominium—who will see to it that they maintain cleanliness, hang laundry in designated places, and ensure that relatives from provinces can only visit for up to two weeks at a time to avoid over population.

“We had to enforce these rules so the houses can serve their purpose,” Toby reiterates. “They are given 25 years to live there for free because if we award them the titles to these lands they can easily sell them and squat again.”

Tag team
The tag team between Toby and John Rey began way before they became public servants. They have always been close growing up, and despite their different personalities, shared a couple of things in common: Tennis and girls.

“But John Rey is proof to the saying that the student is always better than the teacher,” Toby retorts. “When I taught him tennis, he became the No. 1 player in the Philippines for juniors and went as far as winning the World Youth Cup and qualifying in the French Open. When I taught him how to court girls, he had more girlfriends than I did!

“Sabi ko nga sa mga Navoteños, pati ngayon sa bilang ng anak, talo pa din ako ni John [I told the Navoteños that John even beat me with the number of children we each have now],” he laughs. Both happily married, Toby has one son who is in his teens, while John Rey has two toddlers and his is now wife pregnant with their third child.

But while it seems that Toby is such a fan of his younger brother, it turns out that if it were not for John Rey’s faith in Toby’s competence for government, there might not have been a single Tiangco in public service today.

“Everyone in our family—even our grandparents—were opposed to Toby’s plans of running for government,” reveals John Rey. “I was the only one who supported him from the very beginning, and it took years before he was able to convince our parents to let him run [for vice mayor in 1998].”

“John helped me,” Toby affirms. “My parents said politics is dirty, but I told them it is not the career you choose that is dirty; it’s how your run it. You see, we come from a family of businessmen, and the truth is that businessmen always complain about government. So I told my family, if you are given the opportunity to be part of the solution of government’s problems, you should take it. Otherwise, you have no right to complain. Thankfully, John had my back.”

Indeed, the Tiangco brothers’ brand of public service has proven Toby right. Navotas, clean as it is today with social services that truly uplift the lives of its people say it all. Add to that the high regard that the Navoteños now place on the name Tiangco despite the family’s humble beginnings. They all confirm that Toby and John Rey are right where they should be.