DAVAO CITY — President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has offered the position of Environment secretary to Gina Lopez, the head of ABS-CBN’s charitable arm and a known anti-mining advocate.
Duterte announced that he is offering the post to Lopez in a one-minute video message sent to the media Monday.
“I offered the position of DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) secretary to Ms. Gina Lopez,” the incoming president said.
Lopez, who, was with Duterte in the video, said she would consider the next Philippine leader’s offer.
“I am honored with the trust given (to me)… I will seriously, seriously consider it,” she said.
“I want to say that whether I’m in DENR or not, I will give my 100 percent support to this very good man whom I think will be the best president the country will ever have.”
Lopez is the chairman of the ABS-CBN Lingkod Kapamilya Foundation. She is also an environment advocate who has launched a petition to stop the mining in Palawan.
“Mining as an economic path in a magnificent “Last Frontier” is based on a paradigm of economic growth that is myopic and archaic,” Lopez said in an open letter published in 2011.
“In this age of climate change and global warming any economic development that does not recognize and revere the web of life should be thrown in the dustbin,” she added.
Meanwhile, diplomats from Spain, Pakistan and the European Union (EU) on Monday visited Duterte at the Presidential Guest House in the Department of Public Works and Highways Panacan Depot.
Spanish Ambassador to the Philippines Luis Calvo and Honorary Consul Francisco Lon were the first to be received by Duterte at 3:30 p.m. Pakistani Ambassador Safdar Hayat and diplomat Taimur Zulfiqar followed suit at 4:30 p.m.
Franz Jessen, head of the delegation of the EU and Public Relations Officer Telma Gecolea met with the next president at 4:47 p.m.