Invoking helplessness in cleaning up highly polluted water tributaries, Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu has earned the ire of mostly female lawmakers from the House of Representatives, as well as other environmental advocates, and risked getting a measly budget for his department next year. “He said he could not do anything and he’s even mad,” Buhay party-list Rep. Lito Atienza said in Filipino, recalling how Cimatu conducted himself during the agency’s budget hearing at the House committee on appropriations last Tuesday. Such pronouncements did not sit well with his female colleagues who, like him, were enraged when they never saw any budget allocation for the cleanup of Manila Bay, Laguna de Bay, and Pasig River as well as obligating water concessionaires to put up water treatment facilities.

Porcalla, D. (2018, August 9). Cimatu risks getting P100 budget for DENR. The Philippine Star, p. 8.