Gina lashes out Business World reporter
Environment Secretary Gina Lopez lashed out at a reporter after she was asked about a controversial mining directive she issued.
Lopez unleashed a tirade at a reporter of Business World last Wednesday, whose questions about mining she resented, in the process describing the journalist as “bought by greed and selfishness.”
Lopez had earlier made known her impatience with Business World’s Janina Lim, calling out the reporter in mid-question.
“You know, you’re just a f---ing employee,” she was said to have told Lim, whom she described as having “no heart for the poor.”
Lim, however, pressed on with her questions, asking the twice-bypassed secretary to elaborate on her new order for miners to set aside funds on top of what they are required to contribute to a “rehabilitation fund” for formerly mined lands.
Lopez said she wants miners to draw from their profits and pay hard-up farmers “out of the rehab zone.”
She told Lim: “All I am asking is to give P2 million to every farmer of a farm that’s out of the Rehab Zone. What’s wrong with that? They’re disadvantaged, it’s out of the rehab zone. Who’s gonna take care of it? Why don’t you have a heart, you know? All I am asking is to put money for a farmer who has been disadvantaged by mining, what’s wrong with that?”
Informed by Lim that miners have appealed to the Office of the President questioning the “additional requirement” and sought her reaction, Lopez cut her short.
“What questioning? They disadvantaged all the farm lands, they should f---ing take care of it. What’s wrong with that?” the DENR chief said.
“They’re making so much money from the stock pile. Don’t you think they should take care of the farmers that they disadvantage? You in your heart, don’t you think they should?”
She then told Lim and a colleague: “You know, you guys should do your work, but why don’t you have a heart for the poor? Where’s your heart? You think of laws, you think of regulations. How about the Philippine Mining Act which says ... they should not use the resources to disadvantage the present and the future generation. How about that? How about the Philippine Constitution that activates for social justice?”
When Lim tried to follow up with a question, Lopez said, “You know you are so young and you’re already bought by the greed and selfishness. I don’t like it (unintelligible) ... you ask questions again and again and again.”
Lim shot back, “I was not bought, Ma’am. I was not bought. Thank you. Thank you.”
In a statement reacting to Lopez’s action, Business World editor-in-chief Roby Alampay yesterday said: “Janina is a professional. We stand by her dignity and idealism. She ‘has a heart’ for news, facts and the truth. It is unfortunate, and we are dismayed, that a public servant would attack and malign the integrity of a journalist who is simply doing her job. Ms. Lopez’s words were slanderous, her behavior unbecoming of a public official and her hostility towards reporters who bother to simply ask questions is beyond perplexing. It has troubling implications for press freedom and the people’s right to information.”
Alampay is concurrently editor-in-chief of Inter Aksyon.
‘I lost my cool’
In a text message to Alampay, Lopez yesterday explained that she was a in hurry for a TV interview when Lim accosted her in the stairway. “She is young and persistent, but I have often been irritated by her line of questioning. She was not the best person to meet while rushing for an appointment. So I lost my cool with her,” Lopez said.
She said Lim has been covering the Department of Environment and Natural Resources beat for many months and that she has a lot of potential.
“But her insistence and oftentimes insensitivity and lack of compassion to some situations has often irritated me. It was a repartee that took place in a stairway. Without anyone there,” Lopez said.