DENR regional execs get new assignments
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has effected a minor revamp in its regional offices to address complaints of inefficiency and complacency in dispensing the duties of some assigned officials tasked to protect the country’s land, water and air resources.
Environment Secretary Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga, in Special Orders 2023-418 and 419, both dated July 06, 2023, announced the re-assignment of several Regional Executive Directors (REDs) and officials of two regional offices of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB), respectively.
Given new assignments under SO 2023-418 were Lormelyn E. Claudio, who will now be the Regional Executive Director of Eastern Visayas (Region 8), Arturo E. Fadriquela as OIC RED of Zamboanga Peninsula (R-9), Felix S. Mirasol Jr. as OIC RED of Mimaropa (R-4B), Ronald D. Gadot as OIC Assistant Regional Director for Technical Services of Northern Mindanao (R-10), Cesar P. Odi as OIC of the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (PENRO) of Romblon, and Arnold A. Blaza Jr. who was assigned to the Office of the Regional Executive Director in Mimaropa.
The other order — SO 2023-419 — on the other hand, named Martin Jose V. Despi as regional director of the EMB in Central Luzon (R-3) and Wilson L. Trajeco as regional director of EMB’s
Eastern Visayas office.
Leyte Rep. Richard Gomez (4th District) has earlier appealed to Yulo-Loyzaga to “transfer all the heads of the different offices of the DENR Region 8 to other regions,” pointing out that over familiarity between the DENR employees and the local governments have resulted in the personnel’s complacency that caused damages to Leyte’s water, air and land resources.
Gomez asked the DENR to reshuffle the officers, two of them recently appeared before the House Committee on Environment and Natural Resources during its inquiry into the alleged massive environmental damages caused by the DBSN Farms Agriventures Corporation operations to the Ormoc Bay.
Gomez has accused the DBSN, which is owned by local officials, of gross violation of the country’s land and environmental laws, particularly for polluting the waters of the Albuera-Tinag-an stream system with the solid waste discharge from its chicken farms.
He has likewise alleged that involved DENR executives have disregarded environmental laws following the pollution of the Ormoc Bay, including the unauthorized digging of compost pits in a watershed area in Barangay San Joaquin in Palompon, Leyte.
Yulo-Loyzaga’s re-assignment orders “shall take effect immediately.”
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