Filipinos in New York are watching City Hall

And they built Mamdani Tracker to do that

- By ARGYLL CYRUS B. GEDUCOS

ANTHONY ESGUERRA, Geli Juani, and Cha Crisostomo attend the Philippine Independence Day reception at the Philippine Embassy in Washington, DC, in 2025.

On the morning New York City swore in its new mayor, a small group of Filipino professionals was not watching from the sidelines.

They were refreshing a website they had spent weeks building, fueled by late nights, policy documents, and a shared conviction that promises made at City Hall should not disappear once the campaign banners come down.

The result is Mamdani Tracker, an independent public-interest website launched as Zohran Mamdani began his term as mayor, designed to track more than 100 promises made by his administration and follow what happens to them once governing begins.

Behind the project are three Filipinos working in the areas of journalism, policy research, and economics — a combination that reflects both the diversity of the Filipino community in New York and its growing presence in civic and political spaces.

A community with skin in the game

Filipinos are among the largest ethnic communities in the New York metropolitan area, deeply embedded in the city's everyday life.

They work on hospital floors and in caregiving homes, teach in classrooms, build careers in tech and the arts, and increasingly hold positions in government and public policy.

"Because of that, Filipinos absolutely have a stake in what's happening at City Hall," said Anthony Esguerra, a New York-based journalist and newsroom leader who founded the tracker.

He pointed to issues at the heart of Mamdani's campaign — affordability, housing, transit, healthcare, and immigration — as policies that directly shape Filipino lives in the city.