WE express our dismay and denunciation over President Rodrigo Duterte’s appointment of former Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff Roy Cimatu as the new Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) secretary. Duterte has clearly erred in appointing Cimatu as DENR chief. A military man in the DENR’s helm would betray the people’s longstanding clamor for social justice and environmental protection.
We urge Duterte to reconsider this decision, as Cimatu has virtually no track record on addressing environmental issues and instead has a record of defending environmental plunderers and engaging in corruption.
In 1994, Cimatu, then a colonel commanding the 603rd Brigade of the Philippine Army, created the ‘Task Force Lumad’ composed of personnel from the 641st Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army, the Davao del Norte Provincial Police Command, and other government units to guard the Alsons logging tenement and train CAFGU paramilitaries also to protect the logging area.
This was in response to the pangayaw or tribal declaration of armed defense by Ata-Manobo leaders of the indigenous organization Salugpungan against the massive logging operations of the Alsons company owned by the powerful Alcantara clan in Mindanao. Not surprisingly, Alsons is also where Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez has worked for the longest time.
Duterte does not need a military man in the DENR to enforce his promise of a crackdown on destructive big mines and logging operations. Case in point: irresponsible miners and loggers flourished and corruption in the DENR transpired during the tenure of former DENR secretary Angelo Reyes, also an AFP chief of staff, from 2006 to 2007.
As the DENR swings farther and farther right into the pockets of big business and militarists, the Duterte administration can expect the people’s heightened and relentless resistance to big mining projects, agribusiness plantations, and other environmentally destructive projects. The Filipino people will not allow the betrayal of their clamour for social justice and environmental protection to remain unchallenged.--Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment