MICHELLE MAY M.

TADLAS
MGA 211 ADVANCED ENGLISH
OCTOBER 19,2019

REGINA PAZ “GINA” LA'O LOPEZ — OUR MODERN-DAY HERO

I admired most the life of Gina Lopez for written her life story. I had watched her from

television, reading the social media of her advocacy, especially in environmental

aspects. Finding her somewhat difficult to define or classify.

I became more interested when she began to show results of her advocacies such as

the cleanup of the Pasig River, the rehabilitation of La Mesa Dam forest, the rescue of

children in difficult circumstances by Bantay Bata and other successes of the ABS-

CBN Foundation that she headed. I watched her work for the passage of the Clean

Air Act, do battle with loggers and miners and call attention to the need to preserve

Palawan as the last hold-out in the country’s losing battle against environmental

degradation.

But Gina remained an enigma. She was certainly a different breed from other so-

called public servants. I admired her guts as Secretary of Environment and Natural

Resources taking on big mining and even being labeled as a traitor to the privileged

class her family belongs to, but I was taken aback when I saw her break into song “I

believe I can fly” after her appointment was rejected by the Commission on

Appointments. Even if her not a Secretary in Environment and Natural Resources but

still she continues her advocacy. Till then her life was ended. Gina Lopez was earlier

diagnosed with Brain Cancer. She died of multiple organ failure related to the disease

at Makati Medical Center on August 19, 2019.

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Gina Lopez was the daughter of ABS-CBN Chairman Emeritus Eugenio López, Jr. of

Iloilo and Conchita La'O of Manila. She has six siblings including ABS-CBN Chairman

Eugenio López III. Lopez went to Assumption College and Newton College of the

Sacred Heart in Boston (which was later integrated into Boston College). She held a

master's degree in Development Management from the Asian Institute of

Management. She has two sons.

After studying in the United States, Lopez left her privileged life in Manila and became

a yoga missionary for twenty dedicated years and lived in Portugal, India, and Africa.

She met her future husband in Africa with whom she had two sons. She became an

Ananda Marga yoga missionary who taught yoga and ran pre-primary schools and

children's homes for the underprivileged. She lived among the people of slum areas

in Africa guided by the slogan ‘Service to humanity is service to God’.

When she returned to the Philippines, she initiated Corporate Social Responsibility

Programs for the environment and Filipino communities. She became the Managing

Director of the ABS-CBN Foundation. She initiated Bantay Bata 163, the country’s first

media-based hotline. In 1997, Bantay Bata was the United Nations Grand Awardee

for Excellence besting 187 countries all over the world. She established Bantay

Kalikasan, for which she received the 1997 International Public Relations Award of

Excellence for the Environment and Outstanding Manilans Award for the Environment,

2009. She produced educational television shows on Science, Math, Values, History,

and English for elementary and Philippine Literature for high school. For Sineskwela,

Ms. Lopez was honored with the UNESCO Kalinga Award, the first Southeast Asian

to earn such a distinction. She was also the Vice-Chairperson of the ABS-CBN Bayan

Foundation, which provides microfinance assistance to micro-entrepreneurs. She was

also the Chairman Emeritus of the Southeast Asian Children’s Television.

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Gina Lopez also initiated the rehabilitation of the Pasig River and nearby urban

streams through the Kapit Bisig para sa Ilog Pasig project. Once considered as the

lifeline of the Filipino nation, the Pasig River is one of the most polluted and toxic river

systems in the Philippines today. For her efforts in rehabilitating the river, she was

appointed in 2010 by President Benigno Aquino III as the Chairperson of the Pasig

River Rehabilitation Commission. Her efforts in the commission led to a river

rehabilitation revolution that cleansed numerous tributaries in the Pasig River system.

She was also responsible for the reforestation of the La Mesa Watershed Reservation,

the last remaining forest zone in Metro Manila.

She launched the Save Palawan Movement along with her partner organizations and

gathered 7 million signatures for a petition for protection of key biodiversity areas and

against mining. Lopez was a vehement anti-mining advocate, known for her stance

against large-scale mining in the province of Palawan. She backed the No Mining In

Palawan Movement. She also objected to the use of fossil fuels as sources of energy

and coal mining.

During a courtesy visit with President Rodrigo Duterte in Davao City, Lopez initiated

an environmental lecture for Duterte about the need for a better national environmental

policy. Duterte then asked her to be his secretary for the environment. A few days

later, she accepted the offer and was formally appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte

to head the Department of Environment and Natural Resources or DENR. She was

grilled by social media on her appointment because of her family name, Lopez, which

is much regarded as a Filipino business tycoon surname.

She hit the ground running on the very first day in office. She audited all mining sites

and firms in the entire republic and stripped environmental certificates from a bulk of

the mining industry due to massive violations against the environment and the law, the

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first time a secretary of environment did so. This led to massive public support for her

work as a DENR secretary and apology to her for the appointment grilling that

happened in social media. Few of the many notable certificates that were stripped

were those for mining companies doing operations in Semirara Island (a key

biodiversity area) in Antique, Eastern Samar, Surigao del Sur which is home to

indigenous Lumad communities, and Cordillera Administrative Region which the

melting pot of northern Luzon indigenous people. She has advocated a 100%

renewable energy Philippines and is vehemently against mining saying, "The

Philippines does not need mining." Her anti-mining sentiment is backed by years of

Philippine research on mining, both ecologically and economically. She also said that

there will be no mining operations of any form on Palawan, which is popularly known

as the last ecological frontier of the country. Within less than 2 months, she has audited

all mining firms from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. She is also an indigenous people

(IP) advocate. She immediately established forums for consultations between the

DENR and the indigenous people sector in the Philippines, the first time such a DENR

secretary did so. She also established the first-ever DENR public hotline wherein the

public can tell all environmental violations of any entity in the country directly to the

DENR and her office. She is against nuclear energy due to years of research about

the matter. The Nuclear Power Plant in Bataan will only contribute to less than 0.5%

to the National Energy Grid when operated and its costs will be much higher, making

it unsustainable. She prefers the establishment of more wind and solar power plants,

which are massively cheaper and sustainable in the long-run, and the possible

cooperation of the Philippines and Australia to establish the first wave energy plants

in Asia. The Philippines is the center of the Pacific Typhoon Belt, bestowing it with the

most maximized wind and wave shocks in the world.

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In a public announcement, she told media that all buffer zones in all protected areas

in the country shall also be revitalized into their natural state. She is also pushing for

the establishment of numerous protected areas in the country such as the West Panay

Mountain Range National Park. She also announced that the UP Arboretum will be an

ecological paradise where the informal settlers in the area will be the partners for its

development. Her environmental policies are much criticized by some big business

ventures and pro-mining lawmakers in the republic (her father owns one of the biggest

companies in the country) but are backed by numerous environmental and human

rights NGO's. In a recent survey, Filipinos back Lopez's environmental policy by a

huge majority. She has been called a symbol and champion of environmental

conservation in the country ever since.

Lopez's appointment as Environment Secretary was rejected by the Commission on

Appointments (CA) in a vote of 8–16 on May 3, 2017, amid issues over her

controversial policies and alleged incompetence. In a press conference after the

announcement of her rejection, Lopez thanked the eight CA members who "voted

according to their conscience" and urged the legislators to look after the needs of the

poor and not of big businesses.

Lopez continued to chair the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission after her stint as

an Environment minister. A few weeks after her rejection, Lopez announced that The

Manila Times offered her the position of opinion columnist. She voiced her opposition

to the continuation of the Nickelodeon Theme Park that she blocked when she was

DENR Secretary. The theme park was approved by Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo a

month after Lopez was taken out from the environment post. The theme park was 'an

ecological destroyer' according to various environmental NGOs, especially when the

site, Coron, is in the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The approval of

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the theme park was later revoked after massive protests and dissent surged in Coron

town and key Metro areas.

She became the first Filipino to be awarded the prestigious Seacology Prize on

October 5, 2017, at Berkeley, California. The prize states the Lopez is "someone who

has shown exceptional achievement in preserving island environments and culture"

and “shown the vision and courage the Seacology Prize is meant to honor. She has

fought for the Philippines environment and gave island communities there a voice in

the decisions that affect their natural resources and their lives.” She was also cited for

establishing the first-ever consultations between the government and indigenous

groups in the Philippines and for banning open-pit mining.

Lopez hosted an environmental show in ABS-CBN, entitled G Diaries, which

premiered June 4, 2017. The show focuses on environmental conservation and

innovations. The show also premiered in ANC due to its high ratings.

In the same month, Lopez campaigned against the possible lifting of the open-

pit mining ban, which she installed while DENR secretary. It was revealed that

newly appointed DENR Secretary Cimatu supported the lifting of the ban,

causing outrage from environmental organizations. The lifting of the ban was

eventually supported by President Duterte, despite backing Lopez's imposition

of the ban in early 2017. On October 24, the ban was officially lifted by the

Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC), a commission that advocated

mining in the Philippines. 26 mining agreements that were halted by Lopez were

sent by Cimatu to the MICC for evaluation and confirmation as well.

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A natural giver, Gina Lopez had also extended her working hands to help the

environment, another passion that would be greatly associated with her until the

time of her passing.

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