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Heherson Alvarez Appointed Climate Change Commissioner

On December 1, 2009 just before Secretary Heherson Alvarez traveled to Copenhagen to head the Philippine delegation at COP 15, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appointed him to the powerful position of Climate Change Commissioner and Vice Chairman of the National Commission on Climate Change. Recognizing that climate change has crucial implications for the Philippines and requires long-term strategies that transcend partisan politics, the Philippines has provided for six year terms for Climate Change Commissioners that extend past any single Presidential administration. The President of the Philippines will serve as Chair of the National Climate Change Commission. As Vice Chair, Alvarez will lead the Philippine delegation in international negotiations and coordinate domestic climate policy formulation.

Alvarez Since August 2008, when Alvarez assumed the lead of the Philippines climate protection effort as a Cabinet level Presidential Adviser, the Philippines has convened two national climate conferences at the Malacanang Presidential Palace - a Carbon Cutting Congress in November 2008 and a Multimedia Congress on Climate Change Awareness in November 2009. The Philippines has also emerged as the driving force within ASEAN on climate protection and has begun examining the possibility of linking its remarkable climate awareness activity with the Tickell Interactive Climate Awareness and Response Network being built by the Climate Institute in Mexico and the United States. Alvarez’s new post will give him the formal authority to build on his promising start achieved by force of personality and personal reputation.

Few environmental leaders have had as profound an impact on their nation and region as Heherson Alvarez, a member of the Climate Institute Board of Advisors for nearly two decades. Elected while in his twenties to a national constitutional convention, he played an effective role, rousing the ire of the increasingly authoritarian Ferdinand Marcos regime. In 1972, the constitutional convention refused to amend the Constitution to allow President Marcos to stand for a third term. When President Marcos declared martial law, “ Sonny” Alvarez responded by mustering public opposition and soon faced a ”shoot to kill” order from the dictator. Escaping from the Philippines, Alvarez made his way to the United States where he founded and became the driving force behind the Ninoy Aquino Movement, the leading opposition group to the Marcos regime. He began working effectively both with the large Filipino American community and US legislators such as Senators Edward Kennedy and Richard Lugar to highlight abuses underway in the Philippines, and experienced harsh retaliation. Alvarez’s brother was picked up and, in the words of Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila,“ later found mangled beyond recognition, bearing the marks of a diabolical torture.”

The Marcos regime was ultimately swept away by the Peoples Power Revolution of February 1986, the first in a series of remarkable events that toppled the Communist governments of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union over the next five years. President Corazon Aquino, widow of the assassinated Benigno Aquino and winner of a snap February 7, 1986 election called by Marcos, invited Alvarez to return to the Philippines and serve as Secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform. A year later Alvarez was resoundingly elected to the Senate, where he became Chair of the Environment Committee and the first elected official in Asia to draw attention to the challenge posed by climate change. In November 1991 he arranged for a Climate Institute team under IPCC auspices to brief President Aquino, her Cabinet, and key Senators. Meanwhile, EarthSavers Movement, a remarkable collaboration between Alvarez and his wife, Cecile Guidote Alvarez, launched an unrivaled public awareness effort on climate change. Popular color comic books ran stories about climate change. EarthSavers inspired Global Warning, a film about climate change that preceded An Inconvenient Truth by a decade.

Global Warning was released at the same time as the opening of the 1995 Manila Asia Pacific Leaders Summit on Climate Change, chaired by Senator Alvarez and hosted by Aquino’s successor, President Fidel Ramos. A highlight of that conference was a moonlit performance in the garden of the Manila Hotel by EarthSavers Dreams Ensemble, a dance and singing group of young Filipinos and Filipinas inspired by Cecile Alvarez. Senator Alvarez also ensured that the Summit, whose participants included the most environmentally interested parliamentarians in Asia, President Ramos, Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Vanuatu Prime Minister Maxime Carlot-Korman, adopted the Manila Declaration that advanced the idea of a North-South partnership to develop clean energy. At the September 1996 Washington Summit on Climate Stabilization, the Climate Institute recognized Alvarez’s work with its Public Policy and Achievement Award, presented at the US Botanic Garden.

After completing twelve years in the Senate, Alvarez was elected to the House of Representatives. While a Congressman, he spearheaded the move to impeach then-President Joseph Estrada on corruption charges. This effort resulted in Estrada’s resignation in January 2001 and the succession of Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as President. President Arroyo has subsequently recruited Alvarez to a range of posts including Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and Chairman of the Philippine Mining Development Corporation. Since August 2008 Secretary Alvarez has served as Presidential Adviser on Global Warming and Climate Change.

Winter 2010 Climate Alert

Mexico: Inspiring Climate Solutions [ PDF ]

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