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| The Honorable
HEHERSON T. ALVAREZ |
| Secretary |
| Department of
Environment and Natural Resources |
Before his appointment on 29 March 2001, Secretary Heherson T. Alvarez
was Representative of the 1st District of Isabela.
A former Senator, he was first elected to the Senate in 1987 and
re-elected for another six-year term in 1992. In 1998, he ran for and won a seat in
Congress.
An environmentalist, Sec. Alvarez chaired the Senate Committee on the Environment. He is
the founder of the Earth Savers Movement and authored the resolution declaring April 22 as
Earth Day. More importantly, he is the author of the Clean Air Act of 1999. He was the
principal author of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, the Cooperative Development
Authority Law, the New Nursing Act, and the law creating the National Commission on
Culture and the Arts, among others.
At the House of Representatives, he is best remembered for being the
principal author of the Articles of Impeachment against Pres. Joseph Estrada that
eventually led to the latter's ouster.
He was one of the youngest delegates to the 1971 Constitutional
Convention, and a staunch oppositionist. When Martial Law was declared in 1972, he went
into hiding but continued the fight against the strongman. He was later able to escape to
the United States and there organized the Ninoy Aquino Movement. He returned to the
Philippines after the EDSA Revolution. On 11 March 1986, he was appointed by Pres. Aquino
as Minister of Agrarian Reform.
Sec. Alvarez studied law at the University of the Philippines and his
Master's in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University where he was Edward S. Mason Fellow in Public Policy and Management in
Developing Countries. He was also conferred a Doctorate in Environmental Science, honoris
causa, by the Mindanao State University.
He was born on October 16, 1939 in Santiago, Isabela. He is married to
Cecile Guidote Alvarez, an accomplished artist and like him an environmental activist.
They are blessed with two children. |
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