Duterte on Gina’s fate: This is a democracy

PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

“Sayang si Gina (It’s too bad about Gina). I really like her passion,” Mr. Duterte said in a speech at the 27th Philippine Orthopedic Association Convention here on Thursday.

He recalled making a pitch for her during a gathering in Malacañang.

But he said the decision about her appointment was out of his hands. “You know how it is. This is a democracy and lobby money talks. I do not control everything,” he said.

While he heads the executive branch, he also shares power with the other branches as part of checks and balances, and his appointees have to go through the CA, which is made up of legislators, he said.

On May 3, the CA committee on environment and natural resources rejected Mr. Duterte’s nomination of Lopez as environment secretary.

An advocate for the environment, Lopez ordered in February the shutdown of 23 of the country’s 41 operating mines for ruining watershed areas and canceled 75 mineral production sharing agreements, angering mining companies.

In what may be a first, detained Sen. Leila de Lima actually had praise for the President for designating Lopez as environment secretary.

“Let it not be said that I never gave Duterte credit for anything. He chose the right woman for the job,” said De Lima in her latest dispatch from the Philippine National Police Custodial Center.

But De Lima noted that it was too bad that Mr. Duterte was unable to keep Lopez as environment secretary.

“Apparently, there are forces in this country that even Duterte cannot risk being enemies with, in spite of all his tough talk about the destruction of the environment by mining companies,” the senator said.

De Lima told Lopez that her advocacy would someday be given the respect and support it deserved from the people and the government.

She advised Lopez to keep fighting the good fight. “I do believe you can fly and touch the sky,” De Lima said, alluding to the latter’s favorite song “I Believe I Can Fly.”

De Lima has been detained at Camp Crame since Feb. 24 after the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court ordered her arrest on drug charges. The administration accused her of receiving money from drug lords. She dismissed the charges as politically motivated.

Supporters of Lopez continued to assail the CA for rejecting her.

Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles criticized the rejection of Lopez’s appointment as he called on the public to “break free from corrupt leaders and dispose of the Judases” of the country.

The prelate lamented that the refusal of the CA to entrust the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to Lopez “unmasks the kind of leaders we have.”

“They betray God and our people because of self-interest. Because of the interest of the abusive few, God’s creation and the environment meant for the common good is further exposed to degradation,” Arguelles said over Church-run Radio Veritas.

Fr. Ernie Larida, social action director of the Diocese of Bacolod, said Lopez was the right person for the job.

“She has the heart needed to save our Mother Earth,” Larida said.

In Surigao City, antimining advocates said Lopez’s rejection was “depressing.”

Emma Hotchkiss, of the Cantilan Antimining Coalition, said she was “depressed, shaken, angry” with the decision of the CA.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) said it lost a friend in its struggle to defend the environment when Lopez was rejected.

Mining fund

In a statement, the CPP said a mining fund and political influence played in Lopez’s rejection.

In Congress, Anakpawis Rep. Ariel Casilao said the Left would be willing to nominate a new environment secretary should Mr. Duterte revert to his original proposal.

Casilao recalled Mr. Duterte originally proposed that the Left would be appointed to the environment, science and technology, labor and employment, and social welfare and development departments.

Activists Rafael Mariano and Judy Taguiwalo are

now agrarian reform and social welfare secretaries, respectively. The labor department is headed by Silvestre Bello III.

Mr. Duterte has described himself as a socialist, saying during the campaign season last year that “socialists are for the people.” —WITH REPORTS FROM JEANETTE I. ANDRADE, JULIE M. AURELIO AND NIKKO DIZON IN MANILA; AND JEOFFREY MAITEM AND DANILO ADORADOR III IN SURIGAO CITY