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Maria Criselda A. Sarmiento

Professor Carlo Pangilinan

Communication 130

March 29, 2012

Gina-gamit at Nagpapagamit: Gina Lopez as the environmental arm of the Lopez Group’s

industrial machine

The heated encounter between Manny V. Pangilinan and Gina Lopez at the Conference

on Mining‟s Impact on the Philippine Economy and Ecology had easily seeped out the public,

who correspondingly had been quick to take sides. Apparently, had the confrontation occurred

between a mining engineer and an environmentalist, for instance, the iconic face-off would not

grab much attention, or be left unknown at all; after all, they are both media industry colossi, and

a discussion between them on a topic hardly interesting to the general public would be an easy

spectacle. The media portrayal of the victim that Gina Lopez has been enjoying in this issue

gathered a lot of people into fending for her and her green advocacies; and the general public, as

expected, were disposed to favoring the “altruistic” other, in which case, Gina Lopez—the

accused liar, the „you‟ in Manny V. Pangilinan‟s iconic “Now you‟re lying!”

This paper discusses Gina Lopez as the environmental and philanthropic arm of the

Lopez family. Specifically, it will look into the effectiveness of Gina Lopez as a female

environmental partisan—yet barely an environmentalist—of several causes, and, ultimately, as

the greenwashing handmaid of the Lopezes.

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The making of Gina Lopez

Born Regina Paz Lopez, Gina Lopez is the daughter of the late media tycoon Eugenio

“Geny” Lopez Jr, and the sister of Eugenio “Gabby” Lopez III, the current Chairman and CEO

of ABS-CBN. Compared to his brother Gabby, who is “boss” to a lot of people—executives,

employees, and actors alike—having been the keen keeper of ABS-CBN‟s watchtower after their

father‟s death, little is known about Gina before she sat as the Executive Director of the ABS-

CBN Foundation, Inc. Until her recent encounter with Manny V. Pangilinan, Gina Lopez is most

recognized as an active spearhead of some of the Foundation‟s core projects, Kapit Bisig Para sa

Ilog Pasig, Bayan ni Juan, and Bantay Kalikasan.

The rehabilitation of the La Mesa Watershed is one of the flagships of the ABS-CBN

Foundation Inc.‟s achievements. In 1999, Save La Mesa Watershed Project was brought afoot by

the Foundation‟s Bantay Kalikasan, in partnership with the Metropolitan Waterworks and

Sewerage System. The project‟s aim was to restore the deflowered La Mesa Watershed which

became a spoiled eco-location due to illegal poaching and logging. Five years after the plan of

reforestation, the La Mesa Watershed was reopened to the public, only as Le Mesa Ecopark that

charged fifty pesos per head upon admission.

La Mesa Watershed‟s five-year restoration was yet another strategic toying, particularly

of the Lopezes, to herald and further advance public-private partnership, developing another

profitable resource for the family at one end, and extending the myriad of influence of the

Lopezes at another. That was one (and another) story. A good Lopez scheme aside, the

watershed‟s rehabilitation, being an undeniably ambitious a feat, had ultimately benefited Gina

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Lopez herself, seizing the sole crown as the green thumb Lopez. Precisely a sound image as such

was what Gina Lopez needed to redeem her spot in the Lopez family.

On July 4, 1974, the then minor Gina Lopez was voluntarily submitted for rehabilitation

by her mother, Conchita Lopez, to Pasig Criminal Court for drug addiction. Gina was

accommodated to the Dare Foundation Inc. on the same day. After two months, on September

13, 1974, the Court directed two doctors from the U.E.R.M Memorial Hospital to do a thorough

medical examination on Gina Lopez and determine if there had been a progress on Gina‟s drug

dependency and/or personality disorder. But Gina, “probably sensing that she would be

examined by [the] doctors, escaped from the Dare Foundation, Inc.” (Supreme Court Manila,

1975) and had remained at large for some time.

It was rather logical for the Lopez family to obscure this sensitive case of Gina Lopez‟s

drug addiction and/or personality disorder from the public. Clearly, it would be an

embarrassment for the prominent family, and further an easy trigger for public distrust—a

possibility that might have defiled not only the family, but also ABS-CBN, in the event of its

disclosure; but, all the same, like any other incidents of doubt, might easily be rewon by the

family and the corporation with their tested and proven spellbinding mechanics.

Now, Gina Lopez takes delight on the sympathy and support for her advocacies, whether

work-demanded or personal, especially on the movement No 2 Mining in Palawan—with the

number „to‟ replaced to “2,” most probably to incorporate ABS-CBN Channel 2 in this struggle.

On a personal level, that is the ego of the Lopez family, Gina‟s „role‟ as the

environmental and philanthropic member of the family is a conscious attempt of the Lopezes to

fashion Gina as a member of the Lopez family, and therefore a person of moral excellence and a

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person responsive of the society. A clever maneuver of the Lopezes, Gina‟s branding (or re-

branding) as the benevolent eco-warrior demonstrates one of the great powers of the media

tyrants. Such premeditated step of the Lopez family is one of their many measures of, as

Marcuse (1968) well put, “authoritarian identification of person and function.” As a result, the

Lopezes got themselves safe to criticisms, particularly against Gina Lopez‟s credibility and

merits.

True enough, a history ignored is a history forgotten. The tactical concealment of Gina‟s

drug dependency record has mainly rewritten a history of Gina Lopez as a public figure; but it

has also put the family to a safe harbor. Gina, a product of the infamous Lopez tentacles,

accordingly, has gained an easy if not perfect reception from the public, who knows nothing but

the trimmed Gina:

[T]he irresistible output of the entertainment and information industry carry with them prescribed

attitudes and habits, certain intellectual and emotional reactions which bind the consumers more

(…) pleasantly to the producers and, through the latter, to the whole. The products indoctrinate

and manipulate; they promote a false consciousness which is immune against its falsehood…

(Marcuse, 1968)

It is without doubt that the Lopezes are successful in making Gina‟s history of once being

a dark horse in the family evaporate elsewhere. But their apparent winning of public

consciousness does not stop there. Where they have also gotten ahead is in establishing „an eco-

warrior Gina Lopez‟. Such is apparent in the recent confrontation of Gina Lopez against Manny

V. Pangilinan.

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The public perceived the confrontation between the two media personalities to be

particularly a pro-versus-anti-mining debate between a capitalist and an environmental

advocate—who, ironically, is also a capitalist. As a matter of fact, Gina was just ineloquently

responding to Manny Pangilinan‟s statement about mining sites that are not physically viable to

be developed for touristic purposes. It was clear that her only point was that not all mining sites

are “ugly,” as in the case of Sibuyan; and she ended it by saying “I really think you need to go

and visit (Sibuyan).”

The public‟s generalization (of the myth) that it was an exchange specifically about

banning of mining in the country is a product of the Lopez‟s forging of Gina Lopez as an

environmental advocate, and Gina‟s activities as an environmental advocate—which is evidently

a conception (or ideology at large) at work and working as the public have made out the image of

an „environmentalist‟ Gina, whereby “[giving] us the consciousness of our incessant (…)

practice of ideological recognition.” (Althusser, 1971) Having that said, it is not surprising that

almost every act of Gina Lopez would be intentionally or unintentionally associated to

environmentalism as they have made in us “always-already subjects” (Althusser, 1971).

The greenwashing handmaid

Delmas & Burbano (2011) simply defined greenwashing as “the act of misleading

consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company (firm-level greenwashing) or the

environmental benefits of a product or service (product-level greenwashing).” It came from the

roots of what a Madison advertising executive, Jerry Mander. called „ecopornography‟, when a

sudden impulse for environmentalism occurred in the 1960s. Corporations leveraged on the

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increasing popularity of environmentalism and explicitly used it as an approval for their

corporations‟ or products‟ image through advertising (Lybecker & Black, 2008).

There are two ways in which a firm may be involved in greenwashing; and such happen

simultaneously. A firm is greenwashing when it exhibits poor environmental performance while

pursuing public relations in the form of positive communication on its environmental

performance (Lybecker & Black, 2008).

In 2011, the local government of Bulusan passed a resolution to strengthen its opposition

on the geothermal energy exploration project pushed by the Department of Energy (DOE). DOE

saw the Bulusan Volcano Natural Park (BVNP) as a viable source of some 40 megawatts of

geothermal power after a five-year exploration and construction activities. The local government

of Bulusan was quick to oppose this activity by passing a resolution against geothermal energy

exploration in the municipality. The plan calls for a pre-development and development stage

which would necessitate drilling of exploratory wells deep to the earth‟s core, clearing of the

forest, and construction of geothermal plants, power turbines, and toxic waste tailing ponds. This

project is a service contract, the Geothermal Resource Energy Service Contract (GRESCO), of

DOE to the SKI Construction Group Inc. SKI is a fully-owned subsidiary of the First Philippine

Holdings Corporation of the Lopez Group.

The Save Mount Kanlaon Coalition and some Negros environmentalists share the same

sentiment as the Bulusan people and local government‟s. The geothermal project of the National

Negros Geothermal Power Plant (NNGPP) is accounted for the cutting down of thousands of

tress, direction drilling underground, and displacement of the wild flora and fauna with the

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contamination of the waterways. The NNGGP is fully operated by the Energy Development

Corporation that is owned by the Lopez family.

The aforementioned First Philippine Holdings Corporation, owned by the Lopez Group,

is the same corporation that owns 67% of First Gen Corporation as the former‟s arm for power

generation and energy related transactions. The latter owns 60% of First Gas Power Corporation

or FGPC. It is FGPC that holds and operates the Santa Rita power plant in Batangas, a

combined-cycle natural gas-fired power plant. The power plant utilizes gas supplied by the

Malampaya Gas Field in Northwest Palawan. Under a contract with Siemens AG called

Engineering Procurement and Construction, the Santa Rita power plant supplies fuel with the

Malampaya consortium to Shell, Chevron Texaco and the Philippine National Oil Company. The

consortium extracts natural gas from the Malampaya field in conformance to the 1990 North

West Palawan Service Contract No. 38 with the government. Santa Rita power plant also

provides electricity to MERALCO pursuant to the terms of the 25-year Power Purchase

Agreement (PPA). The Lopez Family also owns 13.4% stake in MERALCO.

The former Rockwell power plant exited with a toxic pond of waste which was channeled

to Barangay San Joaquin in Pasig City to develop the high-end mall The Rockwell Center in

Makati City. A 15-hectare land, Rockwell serves as a commercial and residential compound.

With the softening of the soil of the Marikina Valley, the toxic waste that was transferred and

buried in a compound of MERALCO is possible to leak to the Pasig River which is located only

25 meters away from the compound.

It is nonsensical to say that the participation of the Lopez Group in these incidents of

environmental destruction is a mere coincidence. The Lopez Group owns and co-owns a number

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of energy- and power-related corporations whose some projects involve tie-ins with the

government.

In the issue of the toxic waste left by the Rockwell Power Plant, one may find it ironic

that the possible leaking involves the contamination of Pasig River as one of its consequences;

when it is the same river that Gina Lopez hopes to clean in the Foundation‟s Kapit Bisig Para Sa

Ilog Pasig. It also appears ironical how Gina Lopez ardently fights for the mining in Palawan

when it is already deflowered by the First Philippine Holdings Corporation, a corporate holding

of the Lopez Group.

Gina Lopez‟ green advocacies are not enkindled by incidental guilt, so to speak, and are

not in any way aimed to offset the family‟s massive environmental wipeout. Gina Lopez in her

„green revolution‟ is the very tool of the Lopezes‟ greenwashing.

Althusser (1971) says that an “ideological state apparatus certainly has the dominant role,

although hardly anyone lends an ear to hear its music.” Precisely this definition makes a perfect

fit for greenwashing because greenwashing itself is a contemporary example of ideological state

apparatus.

Greenwashing, as it was mentioned, works twofold: corporation‟s environmental abuse

and positive propaganda. Such is true to the case of the Lopezes as they grant themselves means

to incessantly exploit the country‟s resources for their economic gain, while, not only silencing it

in the sheer presence of Gina Lopez, but also putting up a good front as a corporation with

environmental values. As Althusser (1971) claims, “all ideological state apparatuses, whatever

they are, contribute to the same result: the reproduction of the relations of the production, i.e. of

capitalist relations of exploitation.”

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The ironic advocacies of Gina Lopez are generally not an irony, nor are they

coincidences. Gina Lopez is deliberately positioned to work on those particular premises to

conceal the family‟s corruption of the country‟s ecosystem. The projects and advocacies of Gina

Lopez are premeditated to make the greenwashing more effective. A television viewer who sees

a spot in the television where Gina Lopez ardently forwards the No 2 Mining in Palawan

movement would not suspect (or expect) that the main exploiters of Palawan are the Lopezes

themselves. Ideological state apparatus is apparently at work.

The patriarchal nature of the Lopezes‟ ideological state apparatus is also visible. The role

of Gina Lopez as the “agent of exploitation” who functions in “human relations,” (Akthusser,

1971) particularly in her environmental and philanthropic pursuit relates to her being a woman.

Nowhere is the patriarchal praxis of the Lopez family more evident in the general organizational

structure of the Lopez Group whose top executives are mostly men. But the predominance of

men as executives is not the only manifestation of the family‟s patriarchy: ABS-CBN

Foundation that Gina Lopez herself leads as the Foundation‟s Executive Director is composed of

mostly women executives, namely Jocelyn Saw, Mariles Gonzales, Girlie Aragon, and Tina

Monzon-Palma. Only Marlo Mendoza is the male member of the executive core. Now, how does

this make a sign of patriarchy?

According to Warren (1996), “historical and causal links between the dominations of

women and of nature are located in conceptual structures of domination and in the way women

and nature have been conceptualized.” Therefore, it is not surprising that the social norms about

sexuality would tend to situate women in environmental and philanthropic causes, in which case,

Gina Lopez‟s appointment as the head of the ABS-CBN Foundation and the prevalence of

women executives in the Foundation because, in the first place, the purpose the organization

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serve is more feminine than masculine. Furthermore, the prevalence of men in the workplace, as

evident in the Lopez Group organizational structure, and Gina Lopez‟s headship for

environmental and philanthropic causes and not in the energy-resource sector clearly exhibits the

Lopezes‟ notion of patriarchy, acknowledging men as the “objective, [thus] scientific.” (Salleh in

Warren, 1996)

Now it makes more sense why the Lopez family intended Gina Lopez to be their

environmental arm: because a female environmental advocate is more relatable and believable in

a society that has integrated the concept of caring and environment in womanhood in general.

Gina Lopez afloat in the unreal

It is not the relationship between the advocacies of Gina Lopez and the exploitation of the

Lopez Group that is ironically coincidental. Gina Lopez herself is the irony in this wide

ideological schema.

For a capitalist, environment is just a venue for exploitation. As Marx (1992) put it, “It is

as clear as noon-day, that man, by his industry, changes the forms of the materials furnished by

Nature, in such a way as to make them useful to him.” Therefore, environmentalism and

capitalism are mutually exclusive.

It is a mere understatement that the Lopezes are capitalist. If there is a degree of

capitalism, the Lopezes would rate at the peak level; but since there is none, and the term

„capitalist‟ falls short in describing the monopolist family. The Lopezes and suchlike hereafter is

called the „nasty capitalist‟.

Gina Lopez comes from a nasty capitalist family. At the same time, she is an

environmental advocate who is often mistaken as a (true blue) „environmentalist‟. Such precisely

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is the irony behind Gina Lopez herself. It is rather unacceptable to posit Gina Lopez as both

„environmentalist‟ and nasty capitalist as environmental and capitalist pursuit cannot coexist.

One has to be fraud to affirm the other: the nasty capitalist runs in Gina Lopez‟s blood. Unless

she oust herself as a member of the family and undertake other endeavor (that is non-capitalist in

nature), she remains to be a nasty capitalist. Following this analogy, Gina Lopez is not an

„environmentalist‟ but a pretentious one. Her green advocacy, however, may be probable and

actually more believable if it is the Lopezes—perhaps the nastiest capitalist in the country—that

she contends and topples down first.

Apart from greenwashing, Gina Lopez‟s green pursuits may also be explained by

incorporation, that is, the “process by which the dominant classes take elements of resistance

(…) and use them to maintain the status quo, rather than to challenge it.” (Fiske, 1990) Therefore

it is logical for the capitalists to incorporate resistant movements such as environmentalism to the

manipulative system. However, it had been asserted that capitalism and environmentalism can

never coexist. Thus, the capitalists make up other forms of pseudo-incorporation such as

greenwashing.

It is a terror to read Gina Lopez‟s opposition against mining, and ultimately, to accept her

as an environmental advocate, much less an environmentalist. Environmentalism is the greatest

antithesis of capitalism. It is either Gina Lopez admits that her presence is schizophrenic, a

distortion of reality—her being the antithesis of herself, or acknowledge the fact that she is being

used by the family who once discredited her.

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References

Althusser, L. (1971). Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review

Press.

Delmas, M. A., & Burbano, V. C. (2011). The Drivers of Greenwashing. California Management

Review.

Fiske, J. (1990). Introduction to Communication Studies (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Lybecker, D. L., & Black, B. (2008). Great debates in American environmental history. Great

debates in American environmental history.

Marcuse, H. (1968). One Dimensional Man. London: Sphere.

Marx, K. (1867). The Process of Production of Capital. (B. Fowkes, Trans.) Moscow: Progress

Publishers.

Supreme Court Manila. (1975, October 31). G.R. No. L-38850 November 28, 1975. Retrieved

March 27, 2012, from The Lawphil Project:

http://www.lawphil.net/judjuris/juri1975/nov1975/gr_38850_1975.html

Warren, K. J. (1996). Ecological Feminist Philosophies. Indiana University Press.