Lim, Alfredo

▪ 1994

      When underdog Alfredo Lim overcame the odds against him to beat six opponents in Manila's March 1992 mayoral election, he faced a daunting mandate: to clean up the streets of the wayward capital. Lim, the most heavily decorated police officer in Manila's history, promised to do his best to eradicate crime, smut, and corruption from the city. After his election, the controversial mayor came to be viewed as a restorer of peace and justice but also as a strong-arm enforcer who waged vendettas to achieve his goals.

      An orphan from a Manila slum, Lim joined the police force in 1951. In the years that followed, he garnered an astonishing collection of some 40 medals and 400 commendations. The nation's top cop soon became the director of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). Along the way, Lim gained a reputation for quick justice. As head of the NBI, Lim ordered (1990) the arrest of a notorious Manila drug lord. By the time Lim's officers had completed the short ride to headquarters, the suspect (who allegedly had reached for one of his captor's guns) was dying from a bullet wound.

      Lim carried his reputation for discipline and swift retribution into the mayor's office; jaywalkers commonly stood in cages on the side of the street for up to two hours, as did offenders of the city's new antilittering and antismoking laws. Lim declared bars, nightclubs, massage parlours, and "love motels" illegal and gave owners a June 30, 1993, deadline to leave the city. While many relocated outside city limits, others stood their ground, and some 250 owners of the businesses that Lim had closed filed lawsuits and obtained restraining orders. The Lim administration also attacked such problems as garbage disposal, traffic jams, and flood control. In addition to tough antilittering laws and community street washings, Lim requested every homemaker and storekeeper to plant a tree. To solve the problem of traffic congestion, he banned provincial buses from the city. The traffic improved, though the bus operators sued; the courts sided with the mayor. For flood prevention Lim proposed a new system of ground-level canals. He also favoured penalizing the city's 400,000 squatters, saying, "Slums are not necessarily the result of poverty, but the offshoot of laxity in law enforcement." In his latest plan Lim proposed the creation of a 3,000-member police unit, recruited and trained by the mayor's office, to augment the existing police force. The new officers would be college graduates and receive the highest pay in the country. The scheme was abandoned, however, because it would destandardize officer pay; nevertheless, Lim's vision soared high. He dreamed of a city where anarchy and chaos were unknown. When asked if he would run for president in 1998, Lim replied, "All I want is to rescue Manila from decay, and then retire." (ANN BELASKI)

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