Gina and political will

MANILA, Philippines -  We may not always totally agree with her perspective of how her job ought to be done, but there is no doubt Gina Lopez is one of a few Duterte Cabinet members with the political will to get things done.

To those who say she is too extreme, I would say she has even mellowed. I have known Gina for over 20 years now, have worked with her and I have always admired her focus on getting seemingly impossible projects done.

In a way, Gina seems extreme to those affected, but only because the damage done to the environment by many mining operations has also been very extreme.

The aerial view of ugly open pit mines and the very visible contamination of rivers we saw on television news strongly prove Gina’s case against the socially irresponsible mines.

Indeed, no right thinking Filipino can avoid feeling anger upon seeing how some of our parasitical economic elite have spoiled our environment through the years. It is painful to see our bald mountains whose forest cover has been cleared by loggers, legal and illegal.

Now miners have scarred our mountains in their lustful desire to earn billions of dollars in metal ore exports at the expense not just of our environment, but also of our people. Gina is right. They have no sense of social justice.

The miners may dole out temporary jobs and even provide some social services, but after they are done, people are left worse off. Their poverty worsens as they also lose the ability to make a living in a spoiled environment.

Dealing with the mining industry is just one example of Gina’s political will. How she carried out the order of President Duterte to clear Laguna de Bay of fish pens is another. Former presidents made some noise about doing that but nothing happened. Gina made it happen on the 6th month of President Duterte’s watch.

She knew she couldn’t depend on the PNP to help her, so she enlisted the AFP and the Coast Guard. It is said that powerful people own those fish pens, but that didn’t scare Gina. Now residents along the lake can fish there again and the lake’s slow death through pollution from the fish pens can be stopped.

In Aklan, Gina stopped a Chinese boat from dredging Aklan River without proper permits. The Chinese operation, suspected to be black sand mining, had been the subject of complaints from residents who fear the river bank may suffer further erosion. But the local police and authorities did nothing.

Again, Gina brought in law enforcement units from the AFP, Coast Guard and the NBI. They found out that not only was the Chinese operation not cleared by DENR, the Chinese workers did not have passports, much less proper work permits from the Bureau of Immigration.

In Palawan, Gina stopped a subdivision developer from continuing to strip a shore area of mangrove trees. Again, she found local officials and local police conspiring with the developer in total disregard of environmental laws.

Gina’s DENR team removed fences and other structures in the area, including at least 100 houses. There is an existing special proclamation that has declared Palawan as a mangrove reservation. That means any type of development or conversion of mangrove areas is illegal.

Any Filipino who loves this country and is capable of thinking beyond his self interest should be happy we have a public official like Gina Lopez doing what should have been done decades ago. If we had someone like her even as late as the People Power era, our environmental situation would not be as dire.

Of course it is possible to be protective of the environment while exploiting some of our natural resources. It is called responsible mining. Philex has shown it can be done.

Responsible mining may cost some amount of money, but it is money well spent. When Philex had an unfortunate accident, they painstakingly instituted remedial measures to mitigate the accident’s negative impact. They started operations only after making sure the environment is protected.

That is something many of those mines closed down by Gina are obviously not doing. The news film footage showed the amount of environmental degradation in Surigao and Dinagat Island. There is no way such massive damage can be justified.

Indeed, those mining companies and their owners should be forced to make remediation measures right away. Government should require them to put up sufficient money in an escrow fund to ensure remediation efforts would be carried out.

It is encouraging that President Duterte has said he is standing by Gina’s actions. But Gina should also heed the President’s advice to be fair and legal. Gina is known to be emotional about matters close to her heart like social justice and the environment. She must make sure she doesn’t get carried away by such a strong sense of righteousness so as to make her look rather extreme.

And Gina has to be transparent. It was not good for her to deny media details of her decision to close down 23 mining operations. The public has a right to know what criteria were used and how the mines failed based on those criteria. The science behind her decision is very important to her credibility.

Gina cannot assume that just because she is 100 percent sure she is doing something good that all stakeholders will agree. Whether she likes it or not, her job is very political and politics is the art of compromise.

I am not saying she should compromise the public good. There must be ways of making human activities like the development of natural resources happen without causing the kind of environmental damage we now see. Her work is not as black and white as she may think.

Dr. Carlo Arcilla, a respected UP professor of geosciences and head of the Earth Materials Science Laboratory of the National Institute of Geological Sciences has a strong point in an e-mail he sent me.

“We are interested to know what the bases are for closing mines -- we have to teach future geologists and engineers the correct and scientific ways to mine so as not to endanger the environment.

“The people who can clean up the mess in mining are engineers and scientists, who spend time studying these phenomena. Those who claim they are the ONLY people who can clean the environment and the ONLY people who love the environment and this country, without adequate training are seriously misguided.”

I doubt Gina will get confirmation of her appointment by the Commission of Appointments any time soon, or at all. But for so long as she has the support of President Duterte, her lack of confirmation shouldn’t matter.

Gina should remember that even President Duterte is a political creature and subject to all sorts of political pressure. It is good the President is willing to spend political capital on her thus far. For this reason she should always keep the President in the loop and never make momentous announcements like the closure of a large number of mines without his knowledge.

President Duterte said during the campaign that his heart bleeds and his blood boils when he sees how our environment has been badly abused. In a sense, it seems protecting the environment, like the anti drug war, is also an important priority for President Duterte.

And as is the case in the anti drug war, the President realizes that protecting the environment requires strong measures, even if controversial. Perhaps, he can understand why Gina must do her version of EJK to attain her objective.

I guess the reason President Duterte is protective of her is because they are of the same mold. They speak their minds with no regard to political repercussions. They both strongly stand by what they believe in.

And the President can sleep knowing that Gina will not cause him embarrassment through some corrupt act. There are very few Cabinet members I know who, like Gina, cannot be corrupted. I am sure that means a lot to President Duterte.

So again I say, Go Gina, Go but be more careful. Be fair and legal and not be emotionally impulsive.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco