How Toby Tiangco keeps Navotas afloat

When typhoon Ondoy struck in 2009, leaving many parts of Metro Manila — including places not normally visited by floods — underwater, many looked with pity at then Navotas Mayor Toby Tiangco. They knew his city would be submerged with the inordinate amount of rainfall that pounded the metropolis that day, because Navotas had the reputation of being flooded several days a year, even in the heat.

But lo and behold, Navotas was high and dry. Thanks to the vision of Toby, then just 42 years old, who had installed 24 pumping stations, river dikes and floodgates in Navotas after he took office as mayor in 2001.

I had a long chat with Toby at the Crystal room of The Establishment, where chef Him Uy de Baron prepared an exquisite lunch for us. Of course, Toby ordered fish — succulent salmon with ginger sauce and broiled tofu.

A management graduate of the Ateneo de Manila University, Toby’s first job was in the engineering section of the vessels employed by the family’s fishing business. Navotas is known as “the Fishing Capital of the Philippines” and about 70 percent of its population is into fishing and related businesses. By seeing first hand what kept the water in and out of the vessels, Toby knew that engineering was the key to Navotas’ perennial flooding problem. 

“The floods were mostly a result of the tides. So by looking at the shipping calendar, high tide and low tide, you would know when to expect the floods,” Toby explains. Raising the height of the roads did not help, because then the water would just cascade down to the houses that were below street level.

Toby himself always had a pair of boots in his car so he could wade his way to City Hall, so he knew the consequences of the floods. But the 24 pumping stations, which he christened as “Bombastiks,” the dikes and the floodgates elevated Navotas — literally and figuratively — to a more progressive level never before seen. Even before Ondoy proved his Bombastiks right, Toby was already named one of The Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) awardees in 2007. After Ondoy struck and left Navotas virtually unscathed, Toby was swept to even higher ground. He ran unopposed in 2010 for congressman of the lone district of Navotas and won overwhelmingly.

A flood of votes ensured his victory.

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The eldest child of businessman Restituto Tiangco of Navotas and his wife Erlinda, a native of Malabon, Toby was named Tobias Reynald after both his grandfathers.

He went to Xavier for elementary and high school, and the Ateneo for college. He joined the family business, the Trans Pacific Journey Fishing Corp. after college till he decided to venture into uncharted waters as far as the Tiangco family was concerned — the deep, murky waters of politics. His family was against his entering politics.

“I wanted to be known for something all my own. I wanted to be self-made,” Toby explains his decision. Before his foray into politics, he was a kidnap-for-ransom victim, an ordeal that lasted 23 days. But Toby emerged from the ordeal a stronger person, undaunted and determined. I would not be surprised if his decision to go into public service was born from that experience.

He ran and won as vice mayor of the then municipality of Navotas in 1998 but in a twist of fate, immediately became acting mayor because of an electoral protest between the two leading mayoralty candidates. A year after the protest was settled, the incumbent mayor passed away and Toby became mayor in May 2000. Talk about destiny!

He was elected mayor in 2001, in 2004 and in 2007. Toby showed he was willing to walk his talk when he jumped ship to ousted President Estrada’s party shortly before the May 2001 elections.

“I believed in the impeachment process, and was willing to give it a chance. I did not want a shortcut to a change in government. I told my party that if you force Erap to resign, I will resign myself. I wasn’t for Erap, I was for the process,” explains Toby. People were astounded that just when people were jumping Erap’s ship, he was coming onboard.

“Talo na ako nito,” he thought to himself during the May 2001 elections, just four months after Erap stepped down from the presidency. But he was vindicated at the polls.

In 2001, Navotas, which once had a reputation for stink because of its fishports and floods, was named the “Cleanest and Greenest Municipality in the National Capital Region.” It claimed this distinction again in 2003 and 2004

How did Toby do it? He asked volunteers to clean their neighborhoods, for 1 ½ hours in the morning and again in the afternoon. The municipal government paid them P50 a day. The psychological boost of seeing a neighbor, someone they knew, sweeping clean the streets first thing in the morning and in the afternoon made the residents conscious of doing their share in keeping their neighborhood litter-free.

He also built a modern state-of-the-art City Hall, with computerized services. He transformed a garbage transfer station into a park and built a transport terminal. He launched a street-lighting program on every street in Navotas. Navotas has received awards for its police station, its jail, its literacy program, its drug-abuse council. Just a year after being elected mayor, Toby was named one of the Ten Most Outstanding Municipal Mayors in the Philippines for 2002.

As Navotas representative, Toby hopes to continue serving his city (his brother John is now the mayor). He is a proponent of a measure that will install electronic tracking devises in all buses in Metro Manila so their speed and location can be monitored at all times.

Toby, who is happily married to the former Eileen Michelle Yap and is the father of a teenaged boy, doesn’t always take the easy road to success. Politics may stink more than the fish business, but Toby has come out smelling like a rose, just the same.

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