Social justice champion

When President Rodrigo Duterte appointed environment champion Regina Paz “Gina” Lopez as his Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), it caught many by surprise. This is because she is related to the Lopez clan that owns ABS-CBN, one of the country’s biggest television and radio networks.

President Duterte made no secret his disappointment over perceived bias against him by the Lopez-owned media network in the coverage of the presidential campaign period during the May 9 elections last year. The former Davao City Mayor, however, did not take it against Gina who has busied herself in environment protection concerns and stayed out of their family-run media network and other businesses.

Nonetheless, her fellow environment activists warmly welcomed the unexpected appointment of a Lopez empire heiress. To them, it showed very good signs that the newly installed President Duterte is very serious about addressing the threats to our country’s environment, including activities wantonly destroying our wealth of natural resources.

Unfortunately, environment activists immediately jumped the gun to renew their attacks against the mining sector – their favorite whipping boy for purported destructive extraction activities in the country.

President Duterte himself could not have been more blunt when he declared mining companies should comply with our environment laws, or leave the country. Thus, Sec. Lopez’s decision to conduct a comprehensive mining audit was merely in keeping with the presidential direction to protect our country’s environment even if this might hurt certain private business sector interests.

It was a step in the right direction and consistent with the President’s directive. Clearly, an audit would help determine which mining companies are complying with the laws and standards put in place to prevent the environmental degradation – and often times unfairly – associated with mining activities.

If done properly, this audit should help prevent tragedies like the 1996 mining disaster in Marinduque which buried villages and displaced hundreds of families. The success of DENR’s mining audit, of course, depends largely on those chosen to lead it.

It was DENR Undersecretary Leo Jasareno, who in the previous administration headed the DENR’s Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB). He was tapped anew by Lopez to head the audit, which initial findings were released in September last year.

As MGB Director, among Jasareno’s responsibilities was, to quote the MGB website “to promulgate rules and regulations, policies and programs relating to mineral resources management and geosciences developments” and “assist in the conduct of investigation of complaints (including illegal mining activities).”

This means that as MGB chief, Jasareno was the DENR’s point man in the fulfillment of its mining regulatory functions. It was his job, during the previous administration, to ensure that mining companies complied with all miningrelated laws and regulations.

While Jasareno has since stepped down as the head of the DENR mining audit team, its findings nonetheless resulted in the suspension of the operations of 10 mining firms and recommendations to suspend several more.

This is why Sec. Lopez should go further. Rather than directing the DENR to identify the mining firms that have failed to follow the country’s environmental standards, an inquiry must be made into how they were able to violate our laws with impunity in the first place. These 10 mining companies would not have been able to get away with breaking our laws through these years unless they had accomplices right inside the DENR.

Of course, this cannot be done if one of the guys that should be investigated like Jasareno is still with the DENR and still wields influence in the agency?

I understand where Lopez is coming from in her staunch defense of Jasareno when fellow advocates of environment groups demanded earlier for the latter’s ouster from the DENR. As pro-active environment advocate in the past, Lopez got to know and worked with Jasareno who apparently acted as the designated man to rein her in.

While she is willing to give Jasareno a second chance to prove his detractors wrong, the more militant environment advocates/groups, however, are more unforgiving. They squarely blamed Jasareno for allegedly having abetted mining companies circumvent DENR’s mining regulations. Addressing their appeal to Sec. Lopez, they warned Jasareno’s continued stay at the DENR might be detrimental to the efforts of the new leadership to bring change in better safeguarding and protection of our country’s natural resources wealth.

It would do well for Sec. Lopez to start the new year with a fresh slate at the DENR.

Aside from weeding out the mining companies that have violated our laws, she should also seriously consider weeding out people in the DENR. Last Monday, Lopez announced having reshuffled DENR field officials to push its environmental programs designed to develop local communities nationwide.

The revamp involved 17 DENR regional officials nationwide. She cited the revamp was a vital step to implement the DENR’s five-year development plan under the Duterte administration. Lopez described the medium-term plan as anchored on so-called sustainable integrated area development (SIAD). Most especially, she underscored this is in line with the “Ambisyon Natin 2040,” or the government’s 25-year vision to transform the Philippines into a predominantly middle-class society by the year 2040.

Lopez said the restructuring would allow more efficient implementation of the SIAD approach in environmental programs and projects, especially those that directly impact the marginalized sector, such as the Enhanced National Greening Program, a massive reforestation initiative that doubles as a poverty alleviation measure.

Based on the medium-term plan, Lopez explained, the SIAD would serve as the DENR’s framework for localizing development, creating social enterprises in the countryside and building “mini economic zones” that can generate employment, livelihood and equitable income-generating activities in communities.

Also under this plan, Lopez will designate key DENR field officers as site managers for area development management program sites. “The key thing here is people’s access to environment, and if you want to develop an area, you have to develop the people,” Lopez pointed out.

Through this, the DENR chief expressed her confidence the restructuring of the department would steer it to carry out its mandate as one of the government’s social justice champions.

It would do well for Sec. Lopez to start the new year with a fresh slate at the DENR.