Gina Lopez

Regina Paz "Gina" La'o Lopez (December 27, 1953 – August 19, 2019) was a Filipino environmentalist and philanthropist who served as Secretary of the Philippines' Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in an ad interim basis under the Duterte administration.

She was previously the Chairperson of the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission under two consecutive administrations.

Lopez was also a yoga missionary and a pioneer for corporate social responsibility.

Gina was the daughter of ABS-CBN Chairman Emeritus Eugenio Lopez Jr.. of Iloilo and Conchita La'o of Manila.

She had six siblings and the sister of Eugenio Lopez III.

Lopez went to Assumption College and Newton College of the Sacred Heart in Boston (which was later integrated into Boston College).

While she did not obtain a bachelor's degree, she held a master's degree in Development Management from the Asian Institute of Management.

She had two sons, Roberto and Benjamin.

After studying in the United States, Lopez left her privileged life in Manila and became a yoga missionary for twenty dedicated years and lived in Portugal, India, and Africa.

She met her future husband in Africa with whom she had two sons.

She became an Ananda Marga yoga missionary who taught yoga, and ran pre-primary schools and children's homes for the underprivileged.

She lived among the people of slum areas in Africa guided by the slogan ‘Service to humanity is service to God’.

When she returned to the Philippines, she initiated corporate social responsibility programs for the environment and Filipino communities.

She became the Managing Director of the ABS-CBN Foundation.

She initiated Bantay Bata 163, the country's first media-based hotline.

In 1997, Bantay Bata was the United Nations Grand Awardee for Excellence besting 187 countries all over the world.

She established Bantay Kalikasan, for which she received the 1997 International Public Relations Award of Excellence for the Environment and outstanding Manilans Award for the Environment, 2009.

She produced educational television shows on Science, Math, Values, History and English for elementary and Philippine Literature for high school.

For Sine'skwela, Ms. Lopez was honored with the UNESCo Kalinga Award, the first Southeast Asian to earn such a distinction.

She was also the Vice-Chairperson of the ABS-CBN Bayan Foundation, which provides microfinance assistance to micro-entrepreneurs.

She was also the Chairman Emeritus of the Southeast Asian Children's Television.

Lopez also initiated the rehabilitation of the Pasig River and nearby urban streams through the Kapit Bisig para sa Ilog Pasig project.

once considered as the lifeline of the Filipino nation, the Pasig River is one of the most polluted and toxic river systems in the Philippines today.

For her efforts in rehabilitating the river, she was appointed in 2010 by President Benigno Aquino III as the Chairperson of the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission.

Her efforts in the commission led to a river rehabilitation revolution which cleansed numerous tributaries in the Pasig river system.

She was also responsible for the reforestation of the La Mesa Watershed Reservation, the last remaining forest zone in Metro Manila.

She organized Bayanijuan.

Lopez also launched the Save Palawan Movement along with her partner organizations and gathered 7 million signatures for a petition for protection of key biodiversity areas and against mining.

Lopez was a vehement anti-mining advocate, known for her stance against large-scale mining in the province of Palawan.

She backed the No Mining In Palawan Movement.

She also objected to the use of fossil fuels as sources of energy and coal mining.

During a courtesy visit with President Rodrigo Duterte in Davao City, Lopez initiated an environmental lecture for Duterte about the need for a better national environmental policy.

Duterte then asked her to be his secretary for environment.

A few days later, she accepted the offer and was formally appointed by the president to head the Department of Environment and Natural Resources or DENR.

She was grilled by social media on her appointment because of her family name, Lopez, which is much regarded as a Filipino business tycoon surname.

She hit the ground running on the very first day in office.

She audited all mining sites and firms in the entire country and stripped environmental certificates from a chunk of the mining industry due to massive violations against the environment and the law, the first time a secretary of environment had done so.

This led to a massive public show of support for Lopez's work as DENR secretary and an apology to her for the grilling she suffered on social media.

Few of the many notable certificates that were stripped were those for mining companies doing operations in Semirara Island (a key biodiversity area) in Antique, Eastern Samar, Surigao del Sur which is home to indigenous Lumad communities, and Cordillera Administrative Region, which is the melting pot of the northern Luzon indigenous people.

Lopez advocated a 100% renewable energy Philippines and was vehemently opposed to mining having stated, "The Philippines does not need mining." Her anti-mining sentiment was backed by years of Philippine research on mining, both ecologically and economically.