The first thing that one notices nowadays is the change in the image of Greg Gasataya, mayor to more than half a million people in the highly-urbanized city of Bacolod, the provincial center of the country’s Sugarlandia.
Shortly after assuming the top seat at City Hall, Mayor Greg showed up to work the next day wearing prescription glasses and did so during his first presser on 1 July 2025 as he marked his first official 24 hours in office.
Prescription glasses on squarish black plastic frames, giving him a more mature look and more experienced feel to his younger-looking 50ish years.
It is not known if the glasses are part of a publicity gimmick, a suggestion from his PR guys or a real need to address the failing vision of a once young broadcaster who has spent almost a generation, 23 years to be exact, in elective positions over which he has yet to lose an election.
Greg Gasataya was still tagged as just a broadcaster even when he finished three terms of nine years total as representative of the city’s lone legislative district to the Philippine Lower House.
When he became congressmen, the stereotype did not end but only added another layer: corrupt even if he has not faced any complaint from a breathing, living person before the Office of the Ombudsman, the anti-graft body created under the 1987 Freedom Constitution at around the same time when Greg Gasataya was still in college.
In the last polls, the accusations became more vicious and wild but his political opponents did not own up to any of it, including allegations that his wife was a meth user, allegations that did not fly even in the realm of public opinion.
Long portrayed as a Jon Snow of sorts, one who knows nothing, and long downplayed as just a broadcaster who had amassed wealth and achieved political status far more than his contemporaries who shifted to politics, Mayor Greg has yet to issue any reaction to the various issues levelled at him mainly by Internet trolls while his political opponents could only issue innuendos on the campaign trail.
Now that the elections have long passed and Gasataya is mayor of one of the major cities in Negros Island Region, we take a look at the unveiling of his administration and how his management style is proving to be different from previous mayors.
In the first sitdown of DNX post the 2025 polls, Mayor Greg said his approach to everyday problems would be to make things that “can still work, work” like in the case of non functioning traffic lights.
It was the flooding problem, however, in July that showed Mayor Greg’s new tack at governance: a pragmatic approach to problem solving that focused more on finding solutions rather than fixing blame and doing a historical fault-finding – a focus on the now instead of the past and anxiously fixating on the future.
And he showed a heretofore unknown side, a practical techie sense possibly inspired or an influence from young minds around him like lawyers Marty Go, his secretary, city administer Mark Mayo and chief legal officer Joseph Karol Chiu.
To be continued
