Dreams start at home

There is nothing wrong with Iloilo City telling its story in Singapore.

Cities learn from one another, and the World Cities Summit is not some photo-op corner. The 10th edition, held June 14 to 16 under the theme “Liveable and Sustainable Cities: ACT Now!,” gathered mayors, policymakers and urban experts around the same headaches Iloilo knows too well: heat, floods, housing, mobility, heritage, public finance and the uneasy business of making growth feel humane.

So yes, Mayor Raisa Treñas-Chu was right to bring Iloilo’s “city for everyone” pitch there.

But speeches abroad become meaningful only when they come home as work orders.

Iloilo does not need to become Singapore. It should not try. Singapore is a city-state with money, discipline, land controls and administrative muscle that Philippine cities can only envy on most days.

What Iloilo can borrow is the less glamorous habit behind Singapore’s shine: plans that survive politics, data that guide spending, maintenance that is treated as governance, and public spaces designed not just for ribbon-cutting but for daily use.

Treñas-Chu’s line to Channel NewsAsia is the right starting point: “We don’t dream to be a mega city. We dream to be a better city that is people-centered and a city for everyone.”

That sounds modest, almost unpolitical, which is why it could work.

A better city is not measured by skyline or hashtags.

It is measured by whether a market vendor can afford rent after redevelopment, whether a commuter gets home without being punished by poor transport planning, whether an elderly resident can cross a street safely, and whether an informal settler family is moved out of danger without being moved away from work, school and dignity.

This is where the city already has both promise and pressure.

The Philippine Statistics Authority lists Iloilo City’s 2024 population at 473,728 across 180 barangays. That is not a megacity, but it is large enough for small failures to hurt many people.

The country is urbanizing fast, with 54 percent of Filipinos living in urban barangays in 2020, up from 51.2 percent in 2015.

Iloilo has to plan for that pressure now, not when every vacant lot has become another subdivision, parking area or contested drainage line.

The public market projects offer one practical test.

The city says the Central and Terminal markets can now house more vendors, with monthly rents starting at PHP 441.94 in the wet section and PHP 3,989.79 in peripheral spaces.

Good.

Now publish the occupancy, rental compliance, stall allocation and vendor grievance data regularly, because “modernization” should not quietly become displacement in cleaner tiles.

Housing is another.

The city has cited around 12,300 informal settler families as of September 2022, projected to reach 15,000 by 2028. A 1,260-unit plan and a long-term target of 15,000 units are serious numbers.

But in-city housing must remain the bias. Iloilo’s own experience with community-led relocation showed that flood safety and access to livelihood can go together if the poor are treated as partners, not obstacles.

Heritage and gastronomy also need care.

The UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy title, earned on Oct. 31, 2023, can help tourism and investment, but food heritage begins with cooks, farmers, fisherfolk, vendors and families who keep recipes alive.

If the city wants heritage-led growth, protect the people who produce the heritage.

Finally, climate has to sit at the center of this vision.

Iloilo’s urban flood hazard is classified as high, which means flood-resilient design, drainage maintenance, green spaces and honest zoning cannot be side projects.

The summit gave Iloilo a stage.

Now City Hall should give residents a dashboard: housing units delivered, flood works completed, market issues resolved, heritage sites protected, PWD access fixed, trees planted and maintained.

That is how a global vision becomes local proof.