Pesante-USA Bulletin

June 30, 2010

Ramon Paje’s Appointment to the DENR Spells Big Trouble

Los Angeles- The PESANTE-USA, an environmental and peasant support advocacy group based in the United States joins the Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE) in denouncing the appointment of Mr. Ramon Paje, executive director of the Minerals Development Council (MDC), as environment secretary.

“Ramon Paje, like [outgoing] Environment Secretary Horacio Ramos, is one of the mining czars of the Arroyo administration in promoting and implementing mining liberalization in the country. The MDC, which he heads, facilitates the selling and privatization of mineral facilities and lands,” Kalikasan-PNE’s Clemente Bautista Jr. said.

Mining Bureaucrat

“A mining bureaucrat as head of the environment department] dims our hope that there will be positive changes and major reforms in the news dispensation” Kalikasan said.

For the Pesante-USA , RamonPaje’s appointment is a bad omen for the incoming regime. President Aquino III ’s appointment of Paje indicates that the mining liberalization policy and mining ‘revitalization’ program of the previous Arroyo administration will continue.

The Pesante declared that Arroyo as a senator opened up the Philippines with the Mining Act of 1995 and its implementation as a president.

If this policy will be Aquino III’s policy the patrimony of the Philippines is in big trouble.

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