Lopez stays as DENR chief to pursue mining tack

Published November 25, 2016, 10:01 PM By Madelaine B. Miraflor

http://business.mb.com.ph/2016/11/25/lopez-stays-as-denr-chief-to-pursue-mining-tack/

Gina Lopez said she is still the secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and that her fight against destructive mining operations in the country will continue.

In a phone interview, Lopez cleared the issue that she has not been reappointed by President Rodrigo Duterte as the DENR chief.

“I talked to Presidential management and this is what happened. My paper for reappointment was put together with all the undersecretaries and assistant secretaries I am recommending that’s why the President wasn’t able to see it and sign everything,” Lopez told Business Bulletin.

“My paper was overlooked. So now, they took it and the President was able to sign it,” she added.

DENR Assistant Secretary Rommel Abesamis seconded this, saying that there hasn’t been any news within the DENR that Lopez wasn’t reappointed.

Now that the smoke is clear, Lopez said she will still push for the poverty alleviation programs that she have started, especially now that the DENR will get a higher budget of nearly P29 billion next year.

“I do things not for political reasons. The heart and soul of what I do is to provide social justice to the poor,” Lopez said.

The Senate on Tuesday night approved the proposed P28.67-billion budget of the DENR for 2017, which is 31 percent higher than the agency’s P21.8-billion allocation for this year.

Bulk of the budget will be used by the agency for its poverty alleviation programs which will prioritize massive reforestation and climate change initiatives.

Lopez said that a bigger budget would help the department fulfill its commitment to social justice through the implementation of environmental programs, notably the National Greening Program (NGP).

According to Lopez, the budget increase “mirrors the Duterte administration’s push for social justice where majority of the Filipino people truly benefit from the country’s natural resources.”

The environment chief has been eyeing the NGP, the government’s flagship reforestation program, as a tool to improve the lives of people living in poverty.

NGP is a six-year massive forest rehabilitation program that aimed to cover 1.5 million hectares of degraded forestland with trees by the end of 2016.

But it was extended until 2028 through an executive order issued in November 2015 in a bid to rehabilitate 7.1 million hectares more.

As of November 2016, the NGP has already created more than 3.29 million “green jobs,” benefiting individuals hired as workers in producing almost 400 million seedlings.

For 2017, the DENR is also asking Congress to allocate P9.4 billion for NGP’s implementation.

Out of the nearly P29 billion, only P3.37 billion was earmarked for DENR’s two-line bureaus.

The Environmental Management Bureau will obtain the bigger chunk of P2.2 billion to implement projects on solid waste management, clean air and clean water, while the Mines and Geosciences Bureau is allocated P1.15 billion for its mining regulation services and geohazard assessment and mapping.