Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) undersecretary Juan Miguel Cuna has been selected by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr as the acting secretary of the agency, the presidential communications office announced on Friday.
To continue reading, subscribe to Eco‑Business.
There's something for everyone. We offer a range of subscription plans.
- Access our stories and receive our Insights Weekly newsletter with the free EB Member plan.
- Unlock unlimited access to our content and archive with EB Circle.
- Publish your content with EB Premium.
Outgoing environment secretary Raphael Lotilla was named as the country’s ambassador to the Vatican on Friday, after requesting a “lighter assignment”, the presidential communications office spokesperson told the media.
Before Cuna was assigned as DENR’s acting secretary, he served as undersecretary for field operations, overseeing the management and protection of natural resources and land titling at the provincial and community levels in the island groups of Luzon and Visayas.
He was also the supervising undersecretary for the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), and his designation comes at a time when the government has made critical minerals a key strategic priority.
This month, the Philippines signed a deal with the United States to develop a stable supply chain in critical minerals such as nickel and copper, essential raw materials for green technologies such as electric vehicles batteries and wind turbines.
The partnership, under the industry-led Critical Minerals International Alliance, aims to transition countries like the Philippines from a raw material exporter to building a domestic industry that processes its own minerals, DENR said.
Cuna was previously assistant secretary and concurrent director of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) for Luzon and Visayas, the main regulatory arm for pollution control and environmental impact assessment in the Philippines.
During this stint at EMB in 2018, he was charged and suspended for allowing the entry of a garbage shipment from Canada five years prior. The Office of the Ombudsman found that a Canadian exporter shipped the container vans to Manila without the required import entry documents. The containers, which were later abandoned, were declared to contain plastic scrap materials but the bureau of customs found that they contained mixed wastes.
A lawyer by profession, Cuna specialies in local legislation, public administration, programme and project management, and, in recent years, environmental management.
