DENR Secretary Bebet Gozun: From '70s firebrand to post-Edsa reformer
December 15, 2002 | 12:00am
Memory serves not faithfully, but well enough to awaken the past.
It starts with a slip of a girl from the UP in the late Sixties, a long-tressed lass with impossibly dark eyes and a mole under curving lips. A girl who looked you straight in the eye and ran you ragged with her energy and never backed down from anyone or anything.
Men’s hearts were broken on street marches and picket lines, for she had set her cap early on a gruff young charmer from Ateneo. It would turn out to be one of the few Movement marriages, strong and constant, to endure.
Months into martial law, I remember the two lovers looking longingly at each other across a barbed wire fence separating male from female detainees in a stockade somewhere in Bonifacio. No tears, just brave smiles and encouraging words.
Many years later, I would wince at her account of how a freak auto accident had broken her arm in two places. Again no tears, just the wryness of the remembering. That night, she threw herself into the abandon of a favorite pastime, dancing the Argentine tango, utterly unmindful of newly mended flesh and bone.
This is a lady for whom passionate convictions come naturally. And tomorrow, as the new head of DENR, Secretary Elisea "Bebet" Gillera Gozun takes her oath before President Gloria, another slip of a girl with a will of iron.
Watch out, world. These are two ladies who have seen our future and seek to reclaim it for us. They will not be denied.
The Philippine STAR: There are those who say you are an unknown, a lightweight for this type of government position.
Elisea "Bebet" Gozun: I am not exactly new in the government. I am not going in without any idea about what it is to work for the government. Way back in 1986, I served as the special assistant to Minister Ramon Mitra (of the Ministry of Agriculture) when he gave us the opportunity to put in place within the government the reforms that we were asking for during the Marcos years.
And then I joined Minister Sonny Dominguez when he moved over to DENR, as part of the statistician team. That is where I stayed until I became the head executive assistant of then Secretary Jun Factoran and eventually, the assistant secretary for policy and planning.
So you’ve had extensive experience after all in government – in fact, within the department that you will now be heading?
In fact, the advantage also is that we were part of the reorganization team that put together what the DENR is now and transformed it from the Ministry of Natural Resources into the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
As part of that reorganization work, we did a personnel review in terms of identifying who would then be chosen to take on the key positions. So I’m familiar also with the people out there in the field, not just the people here in central office.
So you’ve actually been in this Department from the very start? Para ka lang "balik-department" really at this point.
In a sense, yes, because even when I left, when I resigned from the government in 1991, I then moved on to serve as a consultant to a DENR project supported by the World Bank and UNDP. So I continued to be physically located within the department all the way to July 1999.
People like Secretary Dominguez, Secretary Mitra. What did you learn from influential bosses like these gentlemen?
Minister Mitra was good in linkaging and being able to touch base with a lot of groups. Sonny is very focused and very determined.
I think one of the good things I learned from Secretary Factoran is that critical to your success is to be able to tap the right people and be able to manage them. I owe a lot to the secretary in the sense that when I was his executive assistant, he really gave a hundred percent of his trust to me.
At that time, he categorically informed everyone at DENR that there was only one other person within the department who could commit for the department other than him, and that was me. Even if my position technically was much lower than the undersecretary and the assistant secretary. So that type of trust was what also inspired me to really do my best.
You talked about reforms that you were fighting for during the Marcos years. Was this part of your life early on in college? Were you involved in the protests going on at that time?
Very involved, of course! We could not just be quiet and not do anything and to allow the dictatorship to just do what it wished. So we were very active in the student movement, of course, fighting the dictatorship.
Can you share with the readers your experiences when you were in jail, for example?
Yes, well – during the Marcos years we, of course, had to hide and eventually got caught. I was actually a political prisoner.
How long were you inside?
Very short stint inside. I was only there for a week. What was useful was the fact that my mother’s brother was a senator at that time and was quite close to the powers that be.
And this was Senator...?
Senator Almendras. He was close to President Marcos and at the same time to Defense Secretary Enrile. So he asked Secretary Enrile to release me as a birthday gift to him.
This was after martial law na?
Oo. martial law years na.
And your husband? What did he have to say about this? Was he also as active as you?
He was equally involved. He was also imprisoned.
And at that time you were in UP and your husband was in Ateneo! My goodness ... one of those Katipunan Avenue romances! And then when you finished ... I guess with all of that experience on the streets you probably didn’t have much time to work on the usual academic pursuits.
You’re right. In the sense that I didn’t pursue any further academic studies anymore. There were just too many things that needed to be done. And so I’ve been involved in all of them, on the personal side and the business side, taking care of the family as well as continuing my activism but this time around environmental issues.
You have business sector experience, I think, both as entrepreneur and in industry associations?
I served as the executive director of the Federation of Cattle Raisers Association as well as executive director of the Chamber of Mango Exporters of the Philippines.
When I left government, by the way, in 1991, we also set up our own company. We got a franchise for one of these fastfoods and so we have three stores in the malls here in Metro Manila.
But if you were already active in the private sector, what enticed you to come out and come back to government?
Yes, some people are asking about that and saying I’ve lost my mind when I decided to go back to government. I think the single thing that made me decide to accept the offer and become secretary is that very few are given the privilege, the opportunity to make a difference, and resolve to try to do things better.
You’ve been a consultant for the most part of your last 10, 15, 20 years as a professional. Which have been your most outstanding and most memorable engagements?
I have served as consultant for a lot of important projects. I was the national program coordinator of the Metropolitan Environmental Improvement Program. It started to cover Metro Manila, parts of Bulacan, and eventually moved on to Metro Cebu and Metro Davao.
I was also, at the same time, concurrently the national project coordinator for the Industrial Efficiency and Pollution Control Project. You know, industries are critical to the development of the country, but at the same time we have to make sure that their operations are environmentally safe. That is the reason why we have to work on efficiency there – because good environmental performance for business is actually good for the pocketbook too. That is the message we want to get across.
I was also the project coordinator for the Solid Waste Management Project. Some of the political issues that we have are in the solid waste area, and one of the things we are doing in this specific project that I think is strategic is the idea of bringing in economic valuation of the impact of the degradation of the environment.
That is interesting, because in Third World countries like ours, it is often presented as a contradiction – you know, the demands of development on one hand and the demands of economic improvement on the other. How do you reconcile these in your mind?
People used to say, you need to balance, that’s why you need to choose. I think experiences all over the world and even here in the Philippines over the past years have shown that, actually, they go together.
If you are serious in business, you want to be in business for a long time. If you want to do that, you have to make sure that the environment is protected, because clean air and clean water – these are the things that you consume in business.
Let me be very concrete here. For example, if you go out the South Expressway and take the Sucat Exit, you have a row of industries right there on the right. In the past, we didn’t really care about monitoring what was happening to our groundwater. There was an over-obstruction of groundwater. That resulted to saline intrusion, so water from Manila Bay has gone in and now we have brackish water there.
Thus, companies who need to use that ground water, they can’t do it anymore. Except probably for cleaning their trucks. Even for industrial purposes they couldn’t use brackish water, so they now have to pay the added cost of bringing it in. Trucking in water makes them less competitive vis-à-vis other companies who produce exactly the same thing in other parts of the country but who don’t have that added expense.
That’s an interesting insight. That is not just a quality of life cost, that’s actual economic or business or commercial cost associated with a degraded environment.
Yes, definitely! When we talk of waste, as an industry or even as individuals – anything that we waste is something that we paid for. When a company uses something that has been paid for, not just raw materials but also water or electricity – on top of that, it has to spend again in order to treat it.
So it makes a lot of sense to shift from just looking at the problem of pollution and then treating it, to preventing that pollution upstream – because that’s really savings. That increases efficiency.
I’ve also done work for Asian Development Bank. And this is largely for what we call the Metro Manila Air Quality Improvement Program.
Yes, that’s very important. Everytime I’m in Antipolo, I look down at the smog. It’s terrible!
Yes. The levels of air pollution in Metro Manila specially for suspended cities have really exceeded the standards for some time. Way back in 1992, it went all the way up to as much as five times the standard.
The good news now is that it’s less than that. So we are now exceeding standards by about 2 to 2.5 times only, but even so it’s still way above what’s acceptable. Considering that we all breathe this dirty air, it has had really adverse impact on the health and quality of life of our people.
Studies have shown that the incidence of bronchitis in Metro Manila among the children is 11 times the national average because they are breathing dirty air. While we still need to get more hard data, people are also saying that the incidence of asthma and chronic pulmonary disease is really going up.
The World Health Organization and the UP College of Public Health actually did a study tracking jeepney drivers, aircon bus drivers, and commuters over a one-year period. The findings of the study showed that incidence of chronic cough, chronic phlegm, wheezing and shortness of breath among jeepney drivers is 32 percent. The incidence of tuberculosis, pulmonary tuberculosis is also highest with them. But it was only 16 percent for the aircon bus drivers and 14 percent for commuters.
Meaning, the more exposed you are, the likelier you are to get sick. And all of these have economic values. It is a drain on the economy, it is a drain on the already stressed public health system. (A recent study pegged the economic costs of air pollution at 75 billion pesos a year. – GBO)
The sad part is, the most exposed – the ones who suffer the most from this – are the poor, because they are the least able to protect themselves.
You also used to do some consulting for the League of Cities of the Philippines. Do you see the same or different types maybe of environmental problems in other cities of the Philippines?
The project was called the City Development Strategy Project. The idea here was to help our cities develop a long-term vision for their development anchored on the four principles of livability, competitiveness, bankability, and good governance.
As you see, we don’t talk environment at all. But you can’t have a liveable city with dirty water, dirty air and garbage all over the place. You can’t talk of competitive cities if the environment is already degraded. And this includes, by the way, thinking about what is unique in that city on which they can anchor their development so that the character of the city is maintained.
But you have to do this with all the stakeholders. It is not just a vision for development of the city mayor or the council, but the stakeholders themselves – the people within that city. Ten years down the line, ano ang magiging itsura ng city nila? And to get there, what is their strategy?
This then provides a very logical basis for them to prioritize their programs and projects that will help them achieve their vision. So we have been doing this since 1999, working with seven pilot cities in the Philippines. It was so successful that now we have the Cities, Alliances Fund giving us assistance, supervised by the World Bank and World Habitat. We now have 31 additional cities in this project.
Can you give some examples of specific city challenges? I noticed that you are from Mindanao? Your roots are in Mindanao?
My roots are actually in the Visayas... in Cebu. Both my mother and father are from Cebu. It is just that some of the relatives of my mother moved to Davao.
And actually you also spent some time running businesses in Mindanao. What are the problems facing other cities – for example in Mindanao – that are difficult to address? In Metro Manila of course there’s a lot of problems but I’m sure we’re not the only one.
In general – not just in Mindanao – we have to manage our urbanization. Right now, urbanization is happening at a fast pace. As of now, a majority of Filipinos are already leaving the urban areas, but the urbanization is happening largely in an unplanned and uncontrolled manner.
We have to make sure that as we urbanize, we are able to reap the benefits from that urbanization and manage the adverse effects of urbanization. And what are those? We have congestion, we have traffic, we have squatter settlements, we have inadequacy of the delivery of basic services – plus unfortunately, also environmental degradation.
You are actually looking at a much wider range of concerns than the environment. I noticed that you used to do consulting work previously for UN Habitat and the USAID. I guess these projects have more to do with the whole range of urban problems?
I would think so. The idea is – there was a time that we really had to stress the environment – for example, during the Rio Summit in 1992, the UN Conference on Environment and Development.
Since then we’ve come to realize that it’s actually a question of mainstreaming the environment into development thinking. And this is the reason why the pressure is greater in the urban areas – because of the influx of the businesses, commercialization as well as people – and that’s why we need to make sure that intervention is in place.
Let me see. You also did something for the CALA – Cavite and Laguna-Project...
Cavite-Laguna is an interesting case. This is an area where you also have a very fast urbanization and industrialization, because they are really absorbing the spillover from Manila. That was a deliberate policy of the government.
If you will just leave it up to them, you know that you can’t really manage the environment – or even manage development for that matter – in an isolated manner, using political jurisdictions. You have to look at it as an integrated whole.
Industries, urban centers need water. Where does this water come from? It is up there in your watersheds, and you also have municipalities who are tasked to manage that, and so you have to make sure that all those things fit together.
So this CALA project was an attempt to do that. It was actually led by NEDA Region 4, to demonstrate that you could consider all of these issues in development and environmental management all together. And doing so as a continuum of Cavite and Laguna, not as two disparate entities.
I see that you also did work for HUDCC – again, part of the CDS project?
Yes. Because the idea is that, even if we assist the cities, we need to compare, to draw the lessons, the success stories as well as failures in actually implementing it at the city level-consolidate all these learnings into a body who can then cull all of these and use it to guide urban development in general.
In the same manner that you have the Department of Agriculture guiding agriculture, the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council would then be guiding urban development in the country. For a long time HUDCC was only focused on housing. Clearly housing is a very critical component in urban development, but it’s only a part of urban development.
Secretary, you’ve spent a lot of time consulting for a variety of organizations and issues, as always primarily representing the environmental point of view, but really your range of responsibilities has covered issues important to development especially in countries like ours. You have been doing this as a consultant. How do you expect your life to change now that you are going back as a senior executive in the government?
In terms of work, in consultancy it is on a project basis or program basis, so it is very focused. At DENR, by comparison, I will handle the whole gamut of concerns of the department. Of course, the other major difference is in income. You know that government service is really public service.
What do you think you will miss most as a consultant? I notice you have been travelling a lot. You’ve given just zillions of papers and seminars and speeches and travelled to zillions of countries. Is this something you have enjoyed and do you expect to be doing in the future as secretary?
I have really enjoyed the exposure all over the world because I learned from what others are doing, be it good or bad.
You know, in Japan in the ’70s they were very, very polluted while they were pushing for economic development. In Osaka at 9 or 10 in the morning, you had to turn on your headlights or you wouldn’t be able to see, you wouldn’t be able to drive. In an industrial city called Takishu, they called their heaven "the heaven of seven colors," kasi iba-iba ang kulay ng mga usok na lumalabas.
But the Mayor decided to do something in response to the clamor of mothers in the area who were very concerned about the health of their children. To determine the air quality of Takishu, at that time they didn’t have any sophisticated equipment, so he only used the Ringelmann Chart. This is a chart that shows the level of grayness from light gray all the way to black.
So he sent his people on their bicycles into the crossroads of main streets several times during the day just to determine what the air quality was using the Ringelmann Chart. And on the basis of this he then decided to take action.
You don’t need sophisticated equipment. You don’t need a lot of resources. What is critical is only political will.
I was about to ask that question and you beat me to it. The Japanese have political will. Do we have political will, Secretary?
Yes, I think we have. I personally have it, and I’ve seen that a lot of our officials do have it, too.
If the rest of our people don’t have political will, how do you plan to enlist political will?
The only way that we could enlist political will is to raise public awareness about the issues. The idea is to build a constituency among the people themselves so the people will clamor for it. So that even if we have a change in government because we have elections every three years, national elections every six years – no matter who is there, it will be clear that this is the people’s agenda.
So the major challenge is to raise that public awareness so we will be able to make concern for the environment a concern of all.
I remember one time I was talking to former Defense Secretary Orly Mercado. You know he is also a green activist. He was telling me that when he was in DND, he went out to clean up the Pasig, and then three months later he had to do it all over again because the residents along the Pasig were just dumping garbage and it was as if nothing had happened. How do you deal with that?
The problem is that we don’t bother to involve the people. We do it for them without even trying to explain to them what it is we are doing. We have the International Clean-up Days, we have all sorts of days, OK, and we involve everybody but without explaining it to them. People will never internalize it.
So, as I said, information, education, and communication are very critical to making that happen. And I think one of the key missions of my department is precisely to try and do that. Because it’s only if we are able to do that, and from there move on to action, harness our people to be our partners in environmental protection – only then will we achieve the mandate of the DENR.
This approach also lets people see how they benefit from their resources. A clear example is what has happened with the Marikina River. The people have seen how useful it is for them to have a clean river. So now, even if the City Government were not to do anything, don’t make the mistake of throwing your upos or whatever. Mga tao na mismo doon ang sisita sa iyo na huwag mong gawin ‘yon kasi dinudumihan mo ‘yung river nila.
Much has been made of the circumstances of Secretary Alvarez’s departure. Do you have any comment on that? Do you see any continuity between his policies and yours? What do you intend to continue, strengthen, drop, downgrade?
In fact that is one of my criticisms in general of government – I do not see why we have to drop some programs or projects that address a need. If there is a problem that this program or project is addressing, it should be continued regardless of who started it.
If we are pushing for sustainable development, we won’t have sustainability if policies, programs, and projects get discontinued just because of changes at the top. Obviously, there may be certain changes in terms of priorities, but things that are actually addressing a need should be continued and in fact probably advanced.
Would you be more specific in terms of the Alvarez administration and what will be your administration’s? What will be the similarities? What will be the differences, if any?
I should mention that the work the Secretary has done in terms of addressing climate change and global warming – of course that will continue. Forest and watershed protection is also something that should be continued. Giving equity in access to natural resources to the marginalized sectors of our society, I think, is a major step in the right direction and will of course also continue.
People have also said that one of the reasons Secretary Alvarez is being replaced is because he may have offended the wrong people in the wrong places. And remarks like this always put you in a bad light. Do you have any message for people who say that Secretary Alvarez was eased out because he was squeaky clean, therefore this may say something about Secretary Gozun? What is your tolerance level for corruption?
No tolerance at all. I think we should enforce the law evenly, no matter who is affected. Definitely, as the secretary of Environment, I will make sure that businesses – not just big but small and medium as well – don’t make money at the expense of the health and lives of our people.
But having said that, as I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t mean that we are anti-business or anti-development. Because sustainable business is what sustainable development is all about.
So our business community should have nothing to fear from you in terms of the possible costs of compliance with environmental regulations?
Yes, of course! Because I think we’ve demonstrated enough – not just through anecdotes but actually documented case studies here in the Philippines – that those who are environment friendly and those whose operations are environmentally sound also are in a very good position competitively within the business community.
That is why I said good environment is good business. It makes good business sense for companies to be environmentally sound. And what we will do from my end – and this is an area right away that I intend to work on very closely with other departments of government – is to be able to provide that support to industries to ensure that their operations are environmentally sound.
For example, clean air production and environmental management systems are now being pushed already by the Department of Trade and Industry. I want to work more closely with them on that. Same thing with the Clean Air Production Center of the Department of Science and Technology as well as their Environmental Technology Assessment System Program.
I’d like to tap them all, work together to make sure that we do have development but at the same time ensuring that the other pillars of sustainable development and environment, as well as the social aspect, are all equally taken care of.
You mentioned social development. I noticed that your college studies were in social work. How does this fit into your current concerns about the environment?
It is a perfect fit as far as I’m concerned because the question of managing the environment is really a question of managing people. That’s why I think my background both academically as well as my actual experience working with communities will come in very handy in the work that I’ll be doing.
For example, waste management is not a technical issue about waste, it is an issue of how people manage their waste and think about waste. So that is why I said bringing in the social aspect is a perfect fit.
I’m sure you’re aware that in positions like yours, you’ll always be making enemies. Even now, coming in as secretary, you already seem to be starting to ruffle some feathers. How do you propose to deal with that?
I believe in participatory decision-making, and I’ll make myself available to all the different sectors of the different groups.
A cornerstone of what we will do is that, whatever decision we make, we’ll make sure that we would have brought it first to the people and all the contending parties so that we are able to benefit from getting all these different perspectives before we make a decision.
Hard decisions will have to be made, but at least they’ll know that we really did consider their responses. At the end of the day, we will make the decision on the basis of what we think will serve the common good.
President Arroyo going forward, her administration – is it on the right track environmentally?
In fact, I was very inspired by my one-on-one talk with the President, because she does recognize the need for sustainable development, and she had in fact mentioned that she was looking for a framework to guide the development of this country.
Now that means going beyond the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. It means making sure that the programs and projects of the government as a whole are aligned and will get us to sustainable development, following international commitments which we already agreed to.
If you could pick out one success story that stayed with you all these years to inspire people to put their support behind your vision and the President’s, what would that be?
‘Yung isang community-based forest management project natin, up in the north. ‘Yung economic side of it, nakikinabang na sila, and at the same time they were actively serving as partners of the government in protecting the area and making sure that illegal activities would not be happening within their area.
Another one naman in terms of managing their waste would be Dagat-Dagatan in Navotas. Armed with knowledge from their own NGO, the communities organized themselves and they are managing their waste. They are not only cleaning up their area, they are actually making some money out of that waste. They set up their own community garden for their herbs as well as vegetables. You could see that empowering them brought integrity back into the lives of the very poor.
So that type of empowerment as well as mind shift in actual operation are the things that inspire me, because this has been replicated in so many other parts of the country. I know it can be done.
You’ve been really busy. Your family, how do they take it? You have two children, right?
Yes, I have a daughter and a son. Thank God they’re big enough. I mean they’re grown up. My Bobby is already working. They are very supportive. They know that as a public figure, you are exposed to all sorts of attacks. I had to discuss that with them and open up the possibility that this will also happen to me.
So kailangang tibayan nila ‘yung loob nila and huwag lang ito pansinin, because in many instances its impact is harder on the family members than on the person involved. Alam naman nila ito, and I just hope that we won’t have too much of that in the future.
And your husband Chuck is also supportive?
Yes, very supportive, but he is sure to stay in the background. A very supportive ally behind the scenes who will not in any way get involved with any of this.
I think he also spent some time serving the government too?
Yes, he joined the government also during the time of Minister Mitra and eventually became Undersecretary for the Department of Agriculture. He was in charge of all the attached agencies of the Department of Agriculture then.
What about your co-workers at the department, what can they look forward to from you?
Mainly the idea, that when you work, you work as a team. We tried to instill that stronger sense of purpose as well as teamwork among the people in DENR during my earlier stint there. It was one of our objectives in reforming the department right after martial law.
I want to make sure that I will bring that back. This is not to say that those before me didn’t, but I’m going to make sure that our people – the people I work with – feel that they are equally important, whether they are a messenger, a driver, a records clerk, a technical staff, or in any other position.
The people of the DENR know that I am a very hard worker. However, I never demand more of my people than I demand of myself. I want to make sure people realize that it is a privilege to be in government. It is a privilege to be able to do something for the people. And that government service means service to the people.
When I hear you talking about service to the people, I am hearing Bebet Gozun, the post EDSA 1 government reformer. I am also hearing the earlier Bebet Gozun, the ’70s firebrand in the streets. These strands from your history are coming together now.
It starts with a slip of a girl from the UP in the late Sixties, a long-tressed lass with impossibly dark eyes and a mole under curving lips. A girl who looked you straight in the eye and ran you ragged with her energy and never backed down from anyone or anything.
Men’s hearts were broken on street marches and picket lines, for she had set her cap early on a gruff young charmer from Ateneo. It would turn out to be one of the few Movement marriages, strong and constant, to endure.
Months into martial law, I remember the two lovers looking longingly at each other across a barbed wire fence separating male from female detainees in a stockade somewhere in Bonifacio. No tears, just brave smiles and encouraging words.
Many years later, I would wince at her account of how a freak auto accident had broken her arm in two places. Again no tears, just the wryness of the remembering. That night, she threw herself into the abandon of a favorite pastime, dancing the Argentine tango, utterly unmindful of newly mended flesh and bone.
This is a lady for whom passionate convictions come naturally. And tomorrow, as the new head of DENR, Secretary Elisea "Bebet" Gillera Gozun takes her oath before President Gloria, another slip of a girl with a will of iron.
Watch out, world. These are two ladies who have seen our future and seek to reclaim it for us. They will not be denied.
Elisea "Bebet" Gozun: I am not exactly new in the government. I am not going in without any idea about what it is to work for the government. Way back in 1986, I served as the special assistant to Minister Ramon Mitra (of the Ministry of Agriculture) when he gave us the opportunity to put in place within the government the reforms that we were asking for during the Marcos years.
And then I joined Minister Sonny Dominguez when he moved over to DENR, as part of the statistician team. That is where I stayed until I became the head executive assistant of then Secretary Jun Factoran and eventually, the assistant secretary for policy and planning.
So you’ve had extensive experience after all in government – in fact, within the department that you will now be heading?
In fact, the advantage also is that we were part of the reorganization team that put together what the DENR is now and transformed it from the Ministry of Natural Resources into the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
As part of that reorganization work, we did a personnel review in terms of identifying who would then be chosen to take on the key positions. So I’m familiar also with the people out there in the field, not just the people here in central office.
So you’ve actually been in this Department from the very start? Para ka lang "balik-department" really at this point.
In a sense, yes, because even when I left, when I resigned from the government in 1991, I then moved on to serve as a consultant to a DENR project supported by the World Bank and UNDP. So I continued to be physically located within the department all the way to July 1999.
People like Secretary Dominguez, Secretary Mitra. What did you learn from influential bosses like these gentlemen?
Minister Mitra was good in linkaging and being able to touch base with a lot of groups. Sonny is very focused and very determined.
I think one of the good things I learned from Secretary Factoran is that critical to your success is to be able to tap the right people and be able to manage them. I owe a lot to the secretary in the sense that when I was his executive assistant, he really gave a hundred percent of his trust to me.
At that time, he categorically informed everyone at DENR that there was only one other person within the department who could commit for the department other than him, and that was me. Even if my position technically was much lower than the undersecretary and the assistant secretary. So that type of trust was what also inspired me to really do my best.
Very involved, of course! We could not just be quiet and not do anything and to allow the dictatorship to just do what it wished. So we were very active in the student movement, of course, fighting the dictatorship.
Can you share with the readers your experiences when you were in jail, for example?
Yes, well – during the Marcos years we, of course, had to hide and eventually got caught. I was actually a political prisoner.
How long were you inside?
Very short stint inside. I was only there for a week. What was useful was the fact that my mother’s brother was a senator at that time and was quite close to the powers that be.
And this was Senator...?
Senator Almendras. He was close to President Marcos and at the same time to Defense Secretary Enrile. So he asked Secretary Enrile to release me as a birthday gift to him.
This was after martial law na?
Oo. martial law years na.
And your husband? What did he have to say about this? Was he also as active as you?
He was equally involved. He was also imprisoned.
And at that time you were in UP and your husband was in Ateneo! My goodness ... one of those Katipunan Avenue romances! And then when you finished ... I guess with all of that experience on the streets you probably didn’t have much time to work on the usual academic pursuits.
You’re right. In the sense that I didn’t pursue any further academic studies anymore. There were just too many things that needed to be done. And so I’ve been involved in all of them, on the personal side and the business side, taking care of the family as well as continuing my activism but this time around environmental issues.
You have business sector experience, I think, both as entrepreneur and in industry associations?
I served as the executive director of the Federation of Cattle Raisers Association as well as executive director of the Chamber of Mango Exporters of the Philippines.
When I left government, by the way, in 1991, we also set up our own company. We got a franchise for one of these fastfoods and so we have three stores in the malls here in Metro Manila.
But if you were already active in the private sector, what enticed you to come out and come back to government?
Yes, some people are asking about that and saying I’ve lost my mind when I decided to go back to government. I think the single thing that made me decide to accept the offer and become secretary is that very few are given the privilege, the opportunity to make a difference, and resolve to try to do things better.
I have served as consultant for a lot of important projects. I was the national program coordinator of the Metropolitan Environmental Improvement Program. It started to cover Metro Manila, parts of Bulacan, and eventually moved on to Metro Cebu and Metro Davao.
I was also, at the same time, concurrently the national project coordinator for the Industrial Efficiency and Pollution Control Project. You know, industries are critical to the development of the country, but at the same time we have to make sure that their operations are environmentally safe. That is the reason why we have to work on efficiency there – because good environmental performance for business is actually good for the pocketbook too. That is the message we want to get across.
I was also the project coordinator for the Solid Waste Management Project. Some of the political issues that we have are in the solid waste area, and one of the things we are doing in this specific project that I think is strategic is the idea of bringing in economic valuation of the impact of the degradation of the environment.
That is interesting, because in Third World countries like ours, it is often presented as a contradiction – you know, the demands of development on one hand and the demands of economic improvement on the other. How do you reconcile these in your mind?
People used to say, you need to balance, that’s why you need to choose. I think experiences all over the world and even here in the Philippines over the past years have shown that, actually, they go together.
If you are serious in business, you want to be in business for a long time. If you want to do that, you have to make sure that the environment is protected, because clean air and clean water – these are the things that you consume in business.
Let me be very concrete here. For example, if you go out the South Expressway and take the Sucat Exit, you have a row of industries right there on the right. In the past, we didn’t really care about monitoring what was happening to our groundwater. There was an over-obstruction of groundwater. That resulted to saline intrusion, so water from Manila Bay has gone in and now we have brackish water there.
Thus, companies who need to use that ground water, they can’t do it anymore. Except probably for cleaning their trucks. Even for industrial purposes they couldn’t use brackish water, so they now have to pay the added cost of bringing it in. Trucking in water makes them less competitive vis-à-vis other companies who produce exactly the same thing in other parts of the country but who don’t have that added expense.
That’s an interesting insight. That is not just a quality of life cost, that’s actual economic or business or commercial cost associated with a degraded environment.
Yes, definitely! When we talk of waste, as an industry or even as individuals – anything that we waste is something that we paid for. When a company uses something that has been paid for, not just raw materials but also water or electricity – on top of that, it has to spend again in order to treat it.
So it makes a lot of sense to shift from just looking at the problem of pollution and then treating it, to preventing that pollution upstream – because that’s really savings. That increases efficiency.
I’ve also done work for Asian Development Bank. And this is largely for what we call the Metro Manila Air Quality Improvement Program.
Yes, that’s very important. Everytime I’m in Antipolo, I look down at the smog. It’s terrible!
Yes. The levels of air pollution in Metro Manila specially for suspended cities have really exceeded the standards for some time. Way back in 1992, it went all the way up to as much as five times the standard.
The good news now is that it’s less than that. So we are now exceeding standards by about 2 to 2.5 times only, but even so it’s still way above what’s acceptable. Considering that we all breathe this dirty air, it has had really adverse impact on the health and quality of life of our people.
Studies have shown that the incidence of bronchitis in Metro Manila among the children is 11 times the national average because they are breathing dirty air. While we still need to get more hard data, people are also saying that the incidence of asthma and chronic pulmonary disease is really going up.
The World Health Organization and the UP College of Public Health actually did a study tracking jeepney drivers, aircon bus drivers, and commuters over a one-year period. The findings of the study showed that incidence of chronic cough, chronic phlegm, wheezing and shortness of breath among jeepney drivers is 32 percent. The incidence of tuberculosis, pulmonary tuberculosis is also highest with them. But it was only 16 percent for the aircon bus drivers and 14 percent for commuters.
Meaning, the more exposed you are, the likelier you are to get sick. And all of these have economic values. It is a drain on the economy, it is a drain on the already stressed public health system. (A recent study pegged the economic costs of air pollution at 75 billion pesos a year. – GBO)
The sad part is, the most exposed – the ones who suffer the most from this – are the poor, because they are the least able to protect themselves.
The project was called the City Development Strategy Project. The idea here was to help our cities develop a long-term vision for their development anchored on the four principles of livability, competitiveness, bankability, and good governance.
As you see, we don’t talk environment at all. But you can’t have a liveable city with dirty water, dirty air and garbage all over the place. You can’t talk of competitive cities if the environment is already degraded. And this includes, by the way, thinking about what is unique in that city on which they can anchor their development so that the character of the city is maintained.
But you have to do this with all the stakeholders. It is not just a vision for development of the city mayor or the council, but the stakeholders themselves – the people within that city. Ten years down the line, ano ang magiging itsura ng city nila? And to get there, what is their strategy?
This then provides a very logical basis for them to prioritize their programs and projects that will help them achieve their vision. So we have been doing this since 1999, working with seven pilot cities in the Philippines. It was so successful that now we have the Cities, Alliances Fund giving us assistance, supervised by the World Bank and World Habitat. We now have 31 additional cities in this project.
Can you give some examples of specific city challenges? I noticed that you are from Mindanao? Your roots are in Mindanao?
My roots are actually in the Visayas... in Cebu. Both my mother and father are from Cebu. It is just that some of the relatives of my mother moved to Davao.
And actually you also spent some time running businesses in Mindanao. What are the problems facing other cities – for example in Mindanao – that are difficult to address? In Metro Manila of course there’s a lot of problems but I’m sure we’re not the only one.
In general – not just in Mindanao – we have to manage our urbanization. Right now, urbanization is happening at a fast pace. As of now, a majority of Filipinos are already leaving the urban areas, but the urbanization is happening largely in an unplanned and uncontrolled manner.
We have to make sure that as we urbanize, we are able to reap the benefits from that urbanization and manage the adverse effects of urbanization. And what are those? We have congestion, we have traffic, we have squatter settlements, we have inadequacy of the delivery of basic services – plus unfortunately, also environmental degradation.
You are actually looking at a much wider range of concerns than the environment. I noticed that you used to do consulting work previously for UN Habitat and the USAID. I guess these projects have more to do with the whole range of urban problems?
I would think so. The idea is – there was a time that we really had to stress the environment – for example, during the Rio Summit in 1992, the UN Conference on Environment and Development.
Since then we’ve come to realize that it’s actually a question of mainstreaming the environment into development thinking. And this is the reason why the pressure is greater in the urban areas – because of the influx of the businesses, commercialization as well as people – and that’s why we need to make sure that intervention is in place.
Let me see. You also did something for the CALA – Cavite and Laguna-Project...
Cavite-Laguna is an interesting case. This is an area where you also have a very fast urbanization and industrialization, because they are really absorbing the spillover from Manila. That was a deliberate policy of the government.
If you will just leave it up to them, you know that you can’t really manage the environment – or even manage development for that matter – in an isolated manner, using political jurisdictions. You have to look at it as an integrated whole.
Industries, urban centers need water. Where does this water come from? It is up there in your watersheds, and you also have municipalities who are tasked to manage that, and so you have to make sure that all those things fit together.
So this CALA project was an attempt to do that. It was actually led by NEDA Region 4, to demonstrate that you could consider all of these issues in development and environmental management all together. And doing so as a continuum of Cavite and Laguna, not as two disparate entities.
I see that you also did work for HUDCC – again, part of the CDS project?
Yes. Because the idea is that, even if we assist the cities, we need to compare, to draw the lessons, the success stories as well as failures in actually implementing it at the city level-consolidate all these learnings into a body who can then cull all of these and use it to guide urban development in general.
In the same manner that you have the Department of Agriculture guiding agriculture, the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council would then be guiding urban development in the country. For a long time HUDCC was only focused on housing. Clearly housing is a very critical component in urban development, but it’s only a part of urban development.
In terms of work, in consultancy it is on a project basis or program basis, so it is very focused. At DENR, by comparison, I will handle the whole gamut of concerns of the department. Of course, the other major difference is in income. You know that government service is really public service.
What do you think you will miss most as a consultant? I notice you have been travelling a lot. You’ve given just zillions of papers and seminars and speeches and travelled to zillions of countries. Is this something you have enjoyed and do you expect to be doing in the future as secretary?
I have really enjoyed the exposure all over the world because I learned from what others are doing, be it good or bad.
You know, in Japan in the ’70s they were very, very polluted while they were pushing for economic development. In Osaka at 9 or 10 in the morning, you had to turn on your headlights or you wouldn’t be able to see, you wouldn’t be able to drive. In an industrial city called Takishu, they called their heaven "the heaven of seven colors," kasi iba-iba ang kulay ng mga usok na lumalabas.
But the Mayor decided to do something in response to the clamor of mothers in the area who were very concerned about the health of their children. To determine the air quality of Takishu, at that time they didn’t have any sophisticated equipment, so he only used the Ringelmann Chart. This is a chart that shows the level of grayness from light gray all the way to black.
So he sent his people on their bicycles into the crossroads of main streets several times during the day just to determine what the air quality was using the Ringelmann Chart. And on the basis of this he then decided to take action.
You don’t need sophisticated equipment. You don’t need a lot of resources. What is critical is only political will.
I was about to ask that question and you beat me to it. The Japanese have political will. Do we have political will, Secretary?
Yes, I think we have. I personally have it, and I’ve seen that a lot of our officials do have it, too.
If the rest of our people don’t have political will, how do you plan to enlist political will?
The only way that we could enlist political will is to raise public awareness about the issues. The idea is to build a constituency among the people themselves so the people will clamor for it. So that even if we have a change in government because we have elections every three years, national elections every six years – no matter who is there, it will be clear that this is the people’s agenda.
So the major challenge is to raise that public awareness so we will be able to make concern for the environment a concern of all.
I remember one time I was talking to former Defense Secretary Orly Mercado. You know he is also a green activist. He was telling me that when he was in DND, he went out to clean up the Pasig, and then three months later he had to do it all over again because the residents along the Pasig were just dumping garbage and it was as if nothing had happened. How do you deal with that?
The problem is that we don’t bother to involve the people. We do it for them without even trying to explain to them what it is we are doing. We have the International Clean-up Days, we have all sorts of days, OK, and we involve everybody but without explaining it to them. People will never internalize it.
So, as I said, information, education, and communication are very critical to making that happen. And I think one of the key missions of my department is precisely to try and do that. Because it’s only if we are able to do that, and from there move on to action, harness our people to be our partners in environmental protection – only then will we achieve the mandate of the DENR.
This approach also lets people see how they benefit from their resources. A clear example is what has happened with the Marikina River. The people have seen how useful it is for them to have a clean river. So now, even if the City Government were not to do anything, don’t make the mistake of throwing your upos or whatever. Mga tao na mismo doon ang sisita sa iyo na huwag mong gawin ‘yon kasi dinudumihan mo ‘yung river nila.
In fact that is one of my criticisms in general of government – I do not see why we have to drop some programs or projects that address a need. If there is a problem that this program or project is addressing, it should be continued regardless of who started it.
If we are pushing for sustainable development, we won’t have sustainability if policies, programs, and projects get discontinued just because of changes at the top. Obviously, there may be certain changes in terms of priorities, but things that are actually addressing a need should be continued and in fact probably advanced.
Would you be more specific in terms of the Alvarez administration and what will be your administration’s? What will be the similarities? What will be the differences, if any?
I should mention that the work the Secretary has done in terms of addressing climate change and global warming – of course that will continue. Forest and watershed protection is also something that should be continued. Giving equity in access to natural resources to the marginalized sectors of our society, I think, is a major step in the right direction and will of course also continue.
People have also said that one of the reasons Secretary Alvarez is being replaced is because he may have offended the wrong people in the wrong places. And remarks like this always put you in a bad light. Do you have any message for people who say that Secretary Alvarez was eased out because he was squeaky clean, therefore this may say something about Secretary Gozun? What is your tolerance level for corruption?
No tolerance at all. I think we should enforce the law evenly, no matter who is affected. Definitely, as the secretary of Environment, I will make sure that businesses – not just big but small and medium as well – don’t make money at the expense of the health and lives of our people.
But having said that, as I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t mean that we are anti-business or anti-development. Because sustainable business is what sustainable development is all about.
So our business community should have nothing to fear from you in terms of the possible costs of compliance with environmental regulations?
Yes, of course! Because I think we’ve demonstrated enough – not just through anecdotes but actually documented case studies here in the Philippines – that those who are environment friendly and those whose operations are environmentally sound also are in a very good position competitively within the business community.
That is why I said good environment is good business. It makes good business sense for companies to be environmentally sound. And what we will do from my end – and this is an area right away that I intend to work on very closely with other departments of government – is to be able to provide that support to industries to ensure that their operations are environmentally sound.
For example, clean air production and environmental management systems are now being pushed already by the Department of Trade and Industry. I want to work more closely with them on that. Same thing with the Clean Air Production Center of the Department of Science and Technology as well as their Environmental Technology Assessment System Program.
I’d like to tap them all, work together to make sure that we do have development but at the same time ensuring that the other pillars of sustainable development and environment, as well as the social aspect, are all equally taken care of.
You mentioned social development. I noticed that your college studies were in social work. How does this fit into your current concerns about the environment?
It is a perfect fit as far as I’m concerned because the question of managing the environment is really a question of managing people. That’s why I think my background both academically as well as my actual experience working with communities will come in very handy in the work that I’ll be doing.
For example, waste management is not a technical issue about waste, it is an issue of how people manage their waste and think about waste. So that is why I said bringing in the social aspect is a perfect fit.
I believe in participatory decision-making, and I’ll make myself available to all the different sectors of the different groups.
A cornerstone of what we will do is that, whatever decision we make, we’ll make sure that we would have brought it first to the people and all the contending parties so that we are able to benefit from getting all these different perspectives before we make a decision.
Hard decisions will have to be made, but at least they’ll know that we really did consider their responses. At the end of the day, we will make the decision on the basis of what we think will serve the common good.
President Arroyo going forward, her administration – is it on the right track environmentally?
In fact, I was very inspired by my one-on-one talk with the President, because she does recognize the need for sustainable development, and she had in fact mentioned that she was looking for a framework to guide the development of this country.
Now that means going beyond the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. It means making sure that the programs and projects of the government as a whole are aligned and will get us to sustainable development, following international commitments which we already agreed to.
If you could pick out one success story that stayed with you all these years to inspire people to put their support behind your vision and the President’s, what would that be?
‘Yung isang community-based forest management project natin, up in the north. ‘Yung economic side of it, nakikinabang na sila, and at the same time they were actively serving as partners of the government in protecting the area and making sure that illegal activities would not be happening within their area.
Another one naman in terms of managing their waste would be Dagat-Dagatan in Navotas. Armed with knowledge from their own NGO, the communities organized themselves and they are managing their waste. They are not only cleaning up their area, they are actually making some money out of that waste. They set up their own community garden for their herbs as well as vegetables. You could see that empowering them brought integrity back into the lives of the very poor.
So that type of empowerment as well as mind shift in actual operation are the things that inspire me, because this has been replicated in so many other parts of the country. I know it can be done.
Yes, I have a daughter and a son. Thank God they’re big enough. I mean they’re grown up. My Bobby is already working. They are very supportive. They know that as a public figure, you are exposed to all sorts of attacks. I had to discuss that with them and open up the possibility that this will also happen to me.
So kailangang tibayan nila ‘yung loob nila and huwag lang ito pansinin, because in many instances its impact is harder on the family members than on the person involved. Alam naman nila ito, and I just hope that we won’t have too much of that in the future.
And your husband Chuck is also supportive?
Yes, very supportive, but he is sure to stay in the background. A very supportive ally behind the scenes who will not in any way get involved with any of this.
I think he also spent some time serving the government too?
Yes, he joined the government also during the time of Minister Mitra and eventually became Undersecretary for the Department of Agriculture. He was in charge of all the attached agencies of the Department of Agriculture then.
What about your co-workers at the department, what can they look forward to from you?
Mainly the idea, that when you work, you work as a team. We tried to instill that stronger sense of purpose as well as teamwork among the people in DENR during my earlier stint there. It was one of our objectives in reforming the department right after martial law.
I want to make sure that I will bring that back. This is not to say that those before me didn’t, but I’m going to make sure that our people – the people I work with – feel that they are equally important, whether they are a messenger, a driver, a records clerk, a technical staff, or in any other position.
The people of the DENR know that I am a very hard worker. However, I never demand more of my people than I demand of myself. I want to make sure people realize that it is a privilege to be in government. It is a privilege to be able to do something for the people. And that government service means service to the people.
When I hear you talking about service to the people, I am hearing Bebet Gozun, the post EDSA 1 government reformer. I am also hearing the earlier Bebet Gozun, the ’70s firebrand in the streets. These strands from your history are coming together now.
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