Odd man out in government

Secretary Ramon Paje of the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources will soon face the Commission on Appointments anew after his nomination had been bypassed for the nth time by the bicameral body.

Two major impediments to his confirmation by the CA are a former DENR chief himself, and, unwittingly, a colleague in the Aquino Cabinet.

Zamboanga del Sur Governor Antonio Cerilles, a DENR secretary during the Estrada presidency, has flown over to Manila to personally inform the CA that he continues to oppose Paje’s nomination on the ground of incompetence.

Cerilles cited at least two instances when Paje had failed to act on his urgent pleas to help diffuse the brewing tension in one of the mining communities in his province,  which stemmed from the DENR’s faulty issuance of a special permit to a pseudo company to extract gold and other minerals in the area.

The company favored by the DENR, Lupa Pigegetawan Mining Corp., claims  to be supported by indigenous peoples’ groups. This was actually also Paje’s line in defending the DENR’s issuance of a special permit to the firm.

However Cerilles revealed that far from belonging to indigenous groups, it is actually controlled by one businessman named Manuel Go, a Chinese-Filipino based in Cebu and not even in Zamboanga del Sur.

In his letter to Senate President  and CA chairman Juan Ponce Enrile, Cerilles underscored the word “incompetence” in his complaint to emphasize his frustration over what he considers Paje’s inability to lead the department.

Cerilles’ complaint stemmed from the issuance by the DENR of a special mining permit to Lupa Pigegetawan in Zamboanga del Sur during the term of Secretary Joselito Atienza.

During Atienza’s stint under the Arroyo administration, Paje was holding several enviable positions in the department – he was Atienza’s adviser on mining,  undersecretary for field operations, and president of the Mineral Resources Development Corp. (MRDC),  a government firm directly under the Office of then-President GMA.

Lupa Pigegetawan was able to secure the right  to operate in the minerals-rich town of Bayog in Zamboanga del Sur because of a Special Ore Extraction Permit (SOEP) issued by Atienza for its small-scale mining operations, even if there’s no such thing as an SOEP under any law pertaining to Philippine mining.

But Paje “did not lift a finger” to stop Atienza’s illegal act, according to Cerilles in his letter to Enrile.

Being his mining adviser, for one, Paje had the opportunity at that time to advise Atienza against issuing the SOEP. But he apparently chose to do nothing.

Paje explained to the Department of Justice that the SOEP was issued upon the request of the indigenous peoples’ in Bayog. He cited the 1995 Philippine Mining Act (RA 7942) and the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (RA  8371) as among the DENR’s justifications in issuing the SOEP.

He claimed in a letter to the DOJ that the DENR secretary “is not precluded or expressly prohibited from issuing other mining permits, such as the SOEP.”

But Justice Secretary Leila de Lima shot down his line of defense, pointing out in a Sept. 14, 2011 letter to Paje that while the DENR is not expressly prohibited from issuing other mining permits, the department can only do so “only after the verification and evaluation of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB).”

De Lima likewise pointed out that Lupa Pigegetawan also failed to obtain the necessary permit to conduct mining activities in Bayog, which is required under the law.

Thus, due to these reasons, De Lima ruled that the SOEP “is invalid.”

Paje’s office claimed that as a result of its anti-corruption efforts, the latest Social Weather Stations survey showed a “remarkable improvement in the DENR’s rating in its fight against graft and corruption.” The agency got a neutral grade of +1 this year from dismal -34  in 2009.  Paje went on to say that this was the first time that the DENR obtained a positive rating from the same annual survey, in which the agency averaged a -33 during the previous years.

Paje is missing the point here. The fact is that despite this modest achievement, illegal logging remains rampant  in various parts of the country.  This is not something that Paje can brush aside because President Aquino issued explicit instructions on a logging ban in natural and residual forests under Executive Order No. 23, which was released in February last year.

One can easily conclude that illegal logging has been going on under the nose of the DENR on Paje’s watch despite this moratorium imposed by EO 23.

Conventional wisdom holds that lumber prices are supposed to be on the upswing right now against the backdrop of the construction boom and declining supply supposedly triggered by the log ban.

But prices of lumber have remained stable, which means that domestic supply has remained the same – obviously because of continued logging – despite the moratorium ordered by President Aquino.

It should also be recalled that despite the President’s EO, an investigation ordered by the late Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo indicated the involvement in illegal logging of the very same task force created by President Aquino in EO 23 to run after the perpetrators of this environmental crime.

In their complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman, the DENR chief was accused by DENR employees of being involved in:

- the gross undervaluation of the Fort Bonifacio property of the DENR-attached National Mapping and Resources Information Authority (NAMRIA). The price was reportedly pegged at just P12,000 per square meter against the assessed value of P40,000;

- illegal issuance of 12 parcels of 2,000-hectare pasture leases in Busuanga Island even if this place has already been declared a conservation area; and

- the  questionable disposition by the Natural Resources Development Corp. (NRDC) of DENR properties in Manila and Cebu.

On Paje’s alleged links to illegal logging operations in Agusan, the  details are too specific to have been plucked out of thin air.

The complainants recalled how a Chinese businessman laid out Paje’s  modus operandi  to the members of the DENR Anti-Illegal Logging Task Force.  He disclosed that “the modus operandi of Paje was to ask Chinese businessmen to front for him in the establishment of a logging company,  with Paje working on the approval of the company’s TLA (Timber License Agreement) and thus demanding his share of at least 40 percent ownership of the stocks through his appointed dummy.”

They had also accused Paje of being involved in the undervaluation of the NAMRIA property in Fort Bonifacio, which was assessed at only P12,000 per sqm, when the NAMRIA itself said that it was worth P40,000.

 He was also linked to the illegal disposition of Busuanga Island in Palawan, which was subdivided into parcels so that   pasture lease rights of 25 years each could be awarded allegedly to cronies of Paje and Atienza.  This is highly irregular, the complainants pointed out, because Busuanga has already been declared a conservation area and a significant portion of the island is now a protected area.

 Paje was also allegedly involved, as chairman of the board of the the NRDC, in highly anomalous contracts forged by the firm in the disposition and lease of DENR properties in Manila, Cebu, and Mount Diwalwal.

It is about time that President Aquino look seriously into these allegations, which are simply to many and serious to ignore.

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