The Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Ronnel Domingo has an article today about eight cities that made it to the Institute for Solidarity in Asia’s list of business-friendly cities.

ISA is headed by Jess Estanislao, one of the few persons in this country most qualified to make this list. Estanislao is known by most as the chief economic manager of the Aquino administration, first as socioeconomic planning secretary and later as finance secretary. What few people know is that he has a PhD from Harvard University, where he was also a teaching fellow and a research fellow.

I included this little snippet because ISA’s public governance system and scorecard is patterned after Harvard’s scorecard for LGUs. Any ranking of the country’s cities will fall down like a pack of cards if there is even a tiny hint that the judging process is arbitrary. Who else but Jess can ensure that the list is bullet-proof?

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