President Rodrigo Duterte announced on Monday during a Cabinet meeting that retired general Roy Cimatu, currently the special envoy for OFW refugees, would take the place of Gina Lopez as chief of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
“We are confident that Secretary Cimatu shall faithfully serve the interest of the country and the Filipino people in his capacity as the new DENR Secretary,” said presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella.
Cimatu is a member of the Philippine Military Academy Class of 1970. He was chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) from May to September 2002 during the Arroyo administration.
After retiring from the AFP, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo appointed him as special envoy to the Middle East with a title of ambassador. Last April, Duterte appointed Cimatu as special ambassador for overseas Filipino worker-refugees.
Duterte announced Cimatu’s latest appointment while Lopez’s supporters were holding a rally in Manila on Monday urging the President to re-appoint the DENR chief, who was ousted last week by the Commission on Appointments.
Earlier in the day, members of environmental group Greenpeace blocked the gates of the DENR head office on Visayas Avenue in Quezon City. The group said Lopez’s appointment last year “represents the electoral agenda of various organizations including Greenpeace clamoring for the integration of environmental programs in all presidential candidates’ platform.”
The organization claimed that CA’s rejection of Lopez’s appointment “is a manifestation of the continued control of the Philippine government by big business interests, and as a failure of the current administration to stand by the reforms it is pursuing.”
