This story was originally published in 2019 during Isko Moreno's mayoral campaign.
It is the end of June. Mayor-elect of Manila Isko Moreno is prepping for a shoot and interview with Esquire Philippines at the Diamond Hotel. He jokes around with the people in the room—the make-up artist, stylist and his own entourage of assistants and security detail.
When a wardrobe assistant accidentally pulls a bit too hard on Moreno's arm while putting on a shirt, a nonplussed Moreno waves off her apology.
“Wag ka mag-alala,” he says. “Marami na kong pain nanaranasan.” (“Don’t worry. I’ve experienced pain many times in my life”).
Moreno admits though, he is afraid of needles, which is why he will never get a tattoo similar to the ones our makeup artist has all over her arms, although he says he can fearlessly walk down any street of Manila in the dead of night, all by himself.
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He reiterates his intention to keep Arroceros Park open, and discusses plans for a massive gay pride festival in Manila next year, to coincide with the commemoration of the city’s founding anniversary in June.
The mood is relaxed and jovial. It is perhaps one of the last such moments the Mayor would enjoy as it is a few days before he officially assumes the position of highest elected official of the capital city of the Philippines.
PHOTO: Artu Nepomuceno
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Hitting the ground running
In the first week of July, Mayor Isko is all over the news. He is all business during his first State of the City address as he holds up a piece of paper with a huge zero, representing the number of official documents the previous administration turned over to his transition team.
The next day he presents a suspect arrested for allegedly extorting money from sidewalk vendors in Blumentritt in the Sta. Cruz district. Photos begin circulating online of a relatively clean Divisoria and Carriedo—once teeming with countless sidewalk vendors and impenetrable to motor vehicles—now passable to vehicular and pedestrian traffic and cleared of obstructions, human or otherwise. Clearing operations in the area was one of the first official directives of the freshman Mayor.
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At 44 years old, Francisco Moreno Domagoso, aka Isko Moreno, is the youngest elected mayor of the city of Manila
Within the next few days, he turns up again almost incessantly on social media news feeds and TV newscasts—there he is brandishing a sledgehammer and whacking gambling machines operating within Manila City Hall grounds; he is photographed handing out food to Mali the elephant at the Manila Zoo, promising a major overhaul of the once popular tourist attraction that has fallen into major decrepitude over the years; and there he is again wielding yet another sledgehammer and throwing the the first few blows at what he said was an illegally built barangay outpost that covered up the statue of a prominent Filipino-Chinese business leader.
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The new mayor clearly means business and he’s not wasting a single minute of his three-year term.
Moreno first caught the attention of the public as an actor. He starred in teenybopper films before doing more mature roles under Seiko Films
PHOTO: Artu Nepomuceno
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Making good on promises
Moreno is making good on his primary campaign promise of cleaning up the city—both literally and figuratively.
“I will try to be very specific: my number one priority is (the city’s) garbage problem,” he tells Esquire Philippines. “We will address the environmental issues of the city of Manila.” He shakes his head and sighs. “Masyado nang kitayungpagka-dugyot ng Manila. (Manila’s filth has become too obvious). It cannot be denied. I’m not proud of it, as a Manileño. And the more you deny it, the more you will not solve it. So that will be addressed in a couple of months.”
He’s certainly not waiting to tackle this issue, but many of his other pet projects might take a bit more time: poverty alleviation, social amelioration, infrastructure and heritage preservation—all are on the new Mayor’s to-do list. He is especially keen on bringing back the glory days of Manila through its colonial buildings, or what’s left of it.
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Moreno says Manila's garbage problem is one of his top priorities. He's making good on his campaign promise of cleaning up the streets of the city in just his first week in office
Safari jacket by Ring Jacket, shirt by Luca Avitable, trousers by Ambrosi Napoli, and silk necktie by Tie Your Tie, all at Signet, Shangri-La at the Fort
“We’ll bring back the Old Manila,” he says. “How it was designed by our forefathers. You may be from Taguig, Parañaque, or Makati, you may have all those modern buildings, but they have no character. That is the uniqueness of the city of Manila.”
But preserving the past doesn’t mean ignoring the demands of the present. Moreno outlines plans to balance respecting Manila’s history with adopting measures to address the challenges of modern times. He mentions introducing new technologies, ideas and concepts in governance as well as “reintegrating” Manila back into the fold of agencies of national government.
“Dati kasiangManila namuhayna parang isangbansa,” he says. “Like it’s separate from the rest of the country. Masyadong nagingsiga. So we want it to be more of a vibrant city.”
Moreno ran for the Senate in 2016 but lost. He says the best thing to come out of it was that he was able to see the beauty of the Philippines during his nationwide campaign
PHOTO: Artu Nepomuceno
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From the gutter to the spotlight
If Moreno feels like he knows what Manila needs and how best to achieve his goals, he’s certainly earned it. The story of his unlikely rise to the top of city’s political totem pole is well-known by now—from his years growing up in crippling poverty in the alleyways of Tondo to his big break in local showbusiness after being accidentally discovered by a talent scout during a neighbor’s wake, and finally, to his eventual foray into politics. But hearing it come from Moreno’s lips is something else altogether.
“I literally came from the gutter of society,” he says. “Paminsan-minsan, pagnagmumuni-muni ako, hindi ko sukatakalainnaposible pala naangisangbasurero, isang sidecar boy, ay pwedengmagingalkalde ng lungsod ng Maynila nakapitolyo ng bansa. (Sometimes, I find myself stopping to think, I never dreamed that it would be possible for a garbageman, a sidecar-driver, can become the mayor of the city of Manila, the country’s capital).
He launches into that oft-repeated tale of his youth—his days rummaging through garbage to find the family’s next meal. “May mgaarawwalakangmakakain. So walakangchoice kundikainin mo yungtira ng tao nanasabasurahan. (There were days when you had nothing to eat. So you had no choice but to eat other people’s leftovers, which you would get from the garbage). Ten years old akonagsimulangmagingbasurero. I needed to survive. Sa awa ng Diyos, hindinamanakonagkasakit. We used to collect yung garbage of (a popular fast food chain). Kasi mga 9 p.m. magsasaranasila. Yung mgatira-tira ng tao, ipi-pritonaminulit.” (I was 10 years old when I first became a garbageman. With God’s grace, I never got sick. The leftovers we got from the garbage, we would re-fry and eat).
The new mayor is open about his roots in the slums of Tondo. He says there were days when he would rummage through the trash bins of fastfood outlets looking for the family's next meal
In those days during the late 1980s, options to get themselves out of poverty were limited for people like Moreno. Girls fantasized about going to Japan and becoming entertainers, while boys either applied as laborers in Saudi Arabia or as seamen. For Moreno, it was the latter. The dream for a better life hinged on becoming captain of a ship.
But a different route was waiting for him. His days living in extreme poverty—going to school with an empty stomach, using the same pair of shoes through the four years of high school, going to prom wearing his PE uniform—ended that fateful evening while hanging out at a neighborhood wake.
With his fair skin, patrician nose and overall good looks, “Scott,” as classmates and friends used to call him back then, stood out in the slums of Tondo. Talent manager Wowie Roxas asked him if he was interested to become an “artista” and, without hestitation, the then-18-year-old said yes.
“That changed everything,” he says. “The transition was immediate. It was almost like, one day, basura (garbage), and then the next, the glamour (of showbiz).”
The former Francisco Moreno Domagoso officially adopted the screen name Isko Moreno as soon as he stepped into the bright lights of showbusiness. His years as an actor and entertainer throughout the 1990s are well-documented, although he never quite became a white-hot superstar. In fact, he would be the first to characterize his success in the entertainment industry as “moderate.”
He also doesn’t gloss over the years he spent doing more risqué roles for movies produced under notorious studio Seiko Films.
“No regrets at all,” he says. “I always tell my children, work is work. Anong gusto mo, basurero or artista? (Woud you rather be a garbageman or an actor?) Some people, of course, thought hindisiyamagandanggawain (that it wasn’t decent work). But for me it was a profession.”
Besides being the youngest elected mayor of Manila, Moreno was also the youngest-ever councilman (23 years old), and the youngest-ever elected vice mayor (32 years old) of the city
Double-breasted jacket by Ring Jacket, shirt by Luca Avitable, trousers by Ambrosi Napoli, and silk necktie by Tie Your Tie, all at Signet, Shangri-La at the Fort
Transition to politics
The last time this much attention was paid to the new mayor of Manila was during the first term of his immediate predecessor. Joseph Estrada had once been ousted as President of the Philippines but decided he wasn’t quite done with politics. In 2013, he moved from his traditional bailiwick of San Juan to run for mayor of the country’s capital city. Moreno, who by then had served nine years as city councilor and two consecutive terms as vice mayor, agreed to be his running mate on the condition that the former President would only run for one term and would hand the reins over to his vice mayor in the next local elections.
Three years later, Estrada allegedly reneged on the deal and decided to run again. Disappointed but not dejected, Moreno chose to cut ties with Estrada and seek a seat at the Senate. He lost, placing 15th.
“The only good thing to come out of that (Senate run) was that I got to go and travel the country,” he says. “Seriously, go around the country. It’s beautiful.”
He says the decision to run for public office happened more because he felt the desire to give back—to return the blessings he had been given during his years in the limelight. Having only finished high school, Moreno admits an initial ignorance of the exact function and responsibilities of a councilor, but an intense desire to learn the ropes—and to actually take politics so seriously that he was willing to quit showbiz altogether—set him apart from many other actors-turned-politicians.
And he didn’t just bank on his showbiz cache to coast through life as a councilman. With the prodding of his mentor, former Manila Vice Mayor Danny Lacuna, Moreno went back to school, taking courses at the University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance. He also proudly ticks off the other educational courses he completed: the International Business Leaders Program courtesy of the U.S. State Department, and executive programs at the JFK School of Government in Harvard University and at Oxford University.
“Awa ng Diyos, kahitpapano may diploma na ko ngayon,” he says with a smile. (With God’s grace, I at least have a diploma now).
In just his first week of office, Mayor Isko has earned praise from different sectros of society for his quick actions on a variety of issues facing his constituents
PHOTO: Artu Nepomuceno
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Why he won
The significance of his win is not lost on Moreno, who, at 44 years old, is the youngest elected mayor in the history of the city of Manila. Having beaten the incumbent Mayor Estrada by an overwhelmingly convincing margin of close to 150,000 votes, the new mayor can only speculate how and why he triumphed over gigantic names in Philippine politics. (Former mayor Alfredo Lim also ran and finished third in the polls).
“Maybe nakita ng tao na nagtiyaga ako,” he says. “Nakita ng tao na nagpursige ako. Nakita siguro nila na naghanda ako. (Maybe the people saw that I persevered and that I prepared).
“Second, maybe there’s so much deterioration in the city of Manila. The way we drove our campaign was that I was an option from the two who had already served the city. Where Manila now is only the effect of what they have done during their terms. So, bakanapagodna rin ang tao. Yun lang ang assumption ko.” (Maybe the people got tired. At least, that’s my assumption).
“It pays to wait,” he adds. “It pays to be patient. It pays to prepare yourself. Because, in the end, it’s really up to the people to decide.”
Mayor Isko also keeps his personal cellphone line open, and people are free to text or call him directly for any of their issues and concerns
Having seen Mayor Isko in action during his first week in office has led to people’s renewed sense of optimism, and—dare we say it—hopefulness, that, in an age when it’s all too easy to become cynical about politics in this country, it is good to know change is still possible. While it’s way too premature to call his election a triumph for Manileños, his behavior just a few days before he officially became leader of the city has us believing he may be the real thing.
While getting ready for this shoot, as the photographer fiddled with his camera, Mayor Isko stood outside the air-conditioned room, under the oppressive mid-afternoon heat of Manila. He was staring up at the skyscrapers hugging the city skyline with a smile on his lips and a twinkle in his eye.
“You are now the father of this highly urbanized city,” he said, perhaps more to himself than for the benefit of the people around him. He seemed earnest and in awe, as if the enormity of the situation was only now hitting him. “A city of 1.8 million during nighttime and almost three million during the daytime. If I could say something to my 10-year-old self, scavenging for food at a fast-food dump, I’d say, ‘Galing mo kid! Posible pala. (Great job, kid. It really is possible). If this thing happened to me, it can happen to anybody.”
In this story: Produced and styled by Clifford Olanday • Photographs by Artu Nepomuceno • Interview by Paul John Caña • Grooming by Joan Teotico using NARS Cosmetics • Hair by G Mande • Clothes by Signet, Shangri-La at the Fort • Shot on location at Diamond Hotel
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