Nixed Environment Secretary Gina Lopez is a good one. Unfortunately in government service, when you are good, you are bad.
That is if you accidentally step on big toes.
Lopez was turned down by a powerful Commission on Appointments on Wednesday and finally knocked her out of the cabinet. She has been a staunch supporter of environment concerns and angered the mining industry after ordering the closure of 22 of the Philippines’ 41 mines in February to protect water resources in the world’s top nickel ore exporter. Under her watch, dozens of contracts for undeveloped mines were cancelled and future open-pit mining projects banned as she tightened her crackdown of a sector she blames for extensive environmental damage.
For this, she was sentenced to being undeserving of the cabinet position.
There are suspicions that mining funds and political influence were mobilized to stop her from staying in office.
If that were true, it’s too unlucky not for Lopez but for this country to be deprived of people with the passion displayed by the ditched secretary.
In the final analysis, the big loser here is not Lopez but the country.
