Tag Archives: DENR

komentaryo

What mining lobby?

Note: After the President said “lobby money talks” given the CA’s denial of Gina Lopez’s confirmation as DENR Secretary, Malacañang clarified: “when he said lobby, it’s not necessarily (about) money.”

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It is hilarious hearing members of the Commission on Appointments (CA) trying to defend themselves against reports that there was a meeting between members of Congress and mining company Citinickel the night before the decision was made to deny the confirmation of DENR Secretary Gina Lopez.

First on the list of adamant denials: San Juan’s Ronaldo Zamora. As if he’d need to be spoken to by any mining company at all. (more…)

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The embarrassment of mines, the fortitude of Gina Lopez

If there’s anything that’s been absolutely fascinating watching the proceedings for the confirmation of Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Gina Lopez at the Commission on Appointments, it’s how that long list of oppositors have come together solely to discredit her by misinforming the public and evading culpability for the mining crisis.

Mining misinformation
Mining companies and their advocates and employees want us to forget things. For two days last week, we watched miners and mining interests falling all over themselves trying to make us forget irresponsible mining’s destruction of the environment, displacement of communities, and militarization of sitios and barangays.

So instead of talking about that, the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP) insists that Lopez is “someone who does not believe in the Constitution’s mandate for the State to undertake the exploration, development, and utilization of natural resources, and as such, has put us, government’s partners in mineral development, at a quandary” (Feb 9 Statement). (more…)

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Mines are ours

It is difficult to stay calm when you’re watching the Commission on Appointments proceedings for the confirmation of Gina Lopez as Environment Secretary. It doesn’t help that at the center of it all, the Chairman of the Committee for the Environment is Manny Pacquiao who, without a script, reveals himself as utterly incompetent and totally lost — he can’t even keep up with the concept itself of what the DENR does, the laws that it protects and moves within, the fact that these mines were are talking about actually have a history of violence against the community and of environmental degradation.

Ah, but Pacquiao has the Bible, from which he quotes: “For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land <…> a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.”

So therefore daw, mining is okay.  (more…)

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DENR’s daring, mining’s crisis

I was one of many who thought Gina Lopez was one of President Duterte’s more daring choices as far as picking members of his cabinet was concerned. A staunch environmentalist, she was a welcome decision for Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary, after decades of seeing our natural resources go to waste in the hands of big business, oligarchs, capitalists all in the name of investments and “development” as every government before this one has claimed.

I thought: finally, someone who could shake the system up a bit – if not completely turn it upside down – if only so we can have a different, more honest conversation about the state of our environment. Finally, I thought, someone who would have the interest of communities, including the Lumad, as foremost on her agenda.

And while I am not blind to the limits of Secretary Lopez’s push for eco-tourism, as I saw the people she started bringing into the DENR, I thought: certainly, there will be more to her plans for the environment than eco-tourism. Between Ipat Luna and Philip Camara, she was off to a good start. (more…)