Lopez denies accepting perks from French firm

Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Regina Lopez. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

Environment Secretary Gina Lopez has denied receiving a travel perk from a French solar power investor, although she admitted reaching out to a Department of Energy (DOE) official to give the firm’s $100-million project a push.

Lopez, who is currently abroad, told reporters through text that her October trip to Paris “was a work trip [and] was not at all a perk thing.”

Lopez was sought for comment after an employee of French-backed firm EcoGlobal Inc. filed a graft complaint against her and the firm’s chief executive officer Jean-Philippe Albert Guy Henry on Thursday.

EcoGlobal Inc. business development officer Vienna Tañada accused Lopez of accepting a trip to Paris that cost 38,380 euros (roughly P2.06 million as of November).

She said her employer Henry convinced Lopez to accept the trip in exchange for her intervention for the DOE to fast-track EcoGlobal’s application for a renewable energy service contract (RESC).

Lopez again admitted that she texted Renewable Energy Management Bureau director Mario Marasigan to press for the release of the RESC for the planned 30-megawatt solar power farm in Zamboanga City.