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…)