Know the new LCP Executive Director

Though having both parents tracing their roots from Northern Luzon, Ms. Hilda Corpuz, the new LCP Executive Director, found home in South Cotabato. Migrating to Mindanao during the pre-war years, Hilda and her seven siblings were raised in a farm where palay forms a majestic sight during sunset and where coconut trees cool the scorched earth.  

While her parents oversaw the planting, Hilda was teaching tenants’ children and some T’boli youth what she learned from school. Service is the fervor that will stay with her up to this very day. 

After finishing double degrees - Economics and English- from Notre Dame University, she taught for a year in her alma mater. Feeling the need to explore new horizons, she went to Manila in 1973 to pursue graduate programs. While enrolled in the management master’s degree, she was also employed in Malacañang. 

Despite offers from private companies, in 1975 she started working in the Metro Manila Commission which later changed name to Metro Manila Administration and what is known today as the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA).

For the next 32 years, she grew with MMDA. She held important positions - some of them tough ones, she said in an interview. She headed the council secretariat. She became the chief of the human resources department and legislative staff. She even became the resident ombudsman - a position that entailed not only reviewing and improving organizational processes but also crime-busting. Ms Hilda remembered ordering the suspension and termination of several erring employees. 

She admits that work in the MMDA had become more challenging, day by day. She felt fulfilled in MMDA but it was also her desire to explore new world that made her move to the LCP.  

Ms. Hilda saw the striking differences between MMDA and LCP. MMDA contains itself in the National Capital Region while the LCP embraces the whole Philippine cities. LCP also focuses more on policy, advocacy, and program development on behalf of cities. Their concern may be as diverse and overwhelming that LCP as an organization needs a critical secretariat support to achieve its goals.  

No matter how big issues and concerns Philippine cities face, Ms. Hilda however observes the League exudes the camaraderie that other organizations may not possess. She also said that the LCP’s National Executive Board has the undeniable leadership that puts direction to every program. Her positive remarks cascade from the NEB to the LCP secretariat as she lauds the capability of staff to carry out their responsibilities in synergy.

As the head of the LCP Secretariat, she values each staff’s role in contributing to the success of the LCP. However, with the influx of work to the LCP, a staff is inevitably left threadbare. She will focus on providing an enabling environment for the secretariat by upgrading its technical capability, inculcating core values and discipline, and good taste.  

With the responsive Secretariat, LCP maintains its reputation as the premiere local government league, Ms. Hilda believes. For her, genuine public service to the Philippine cities is still her priority.