Lim joins 2 other Pinoy bets for World Mayor

MANILA, Philippines – Another city mayor from the Philippines is added to the initial list of nominees for the World Mayor award this year.

Manila City’s Alfredo Lim is among the newly-nominated officials who ramp up the final number of nominees to 96 when nominations were closed on May 17, Thursday.

Lim is the third Filipino city mayor to be included in the shortlist of nominees for the World Mayor award this year. The two Filipino city mayors who were earlier nominated were:

• Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan of Angeles City, Pampanga
• Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio of Davao City, Davao

The nominees will be trimmed down to 25 finalists in June.

The nomination is done by accomplishing an online nomination form, in which a person has to state the reasons for nominating the city official of his or her choice.

The winner will be determined and announced by the City Mayors Foundation, an international think tank on urban affairs, in December.

Since the establishment of the awards in 2004, five nominated city mayors from the Philippines made it among the finalists, with three of them ranking among the top 10:

• 2005: Oscar Rodriguez of San Fernando, Pampanga (still incumbent mayor) – ranked 4th
• 2006: Jejomar Binay of Makati City (now Philippine vice president) – ranked 4th
• 2006: Carmelo Lazatin of Angeles City, Pampanga (now Pampanga representative) – finalist
• 2008: Marides Fernando of Marikina City (former mayor) – ranked 7th
• 2010: Jesse Robredo of Naga City, Camarines Sur (now Interior and Local Government secretary) – finalist

Previous World Mayor awardees are:

• 2004: Edi Rama (Tirana, Albania)
• 2005: Dora Bakoyannis (Athens, Greece)
• 2006: John So (Melbourne, Australia)
• 2008: Helen Zille (Cape Town, South Africa)
• 2010: Marcelo Ebrard (Mexico City, Mexico)

Lim is seeking re-election in the 2013 mid-term polls. He will likely be challenged by former President Joseph Estrada who has expressed his interest to vie for the current post of Lim. – Rappler.com