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| Returning
from the U.S. in 1986 with wife Cecile
and Children Hexilon and Herxilia. |
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HEHERSON T. ALVAREZ served as Senator
for two inextendible terms of 12 years. In May 1998
he was elected as Member of the House of Representatives.
He served the Macapagal-Arroyo administration as
Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources and was recently appointed as the Presidential
Adviser on Overseas Filipino Communities, and national
spokesperson of Lakas-CMD, the biggest political
party in the country.
He has a Master's Degree in Public Administration
from Harvard University, USA and a recipient of
the Outstanding Alumnus Award from the University
of the Philippines.
He is a veteran warrior in many arenas - in human
rights, the environment, modernizing the economy,
democratizing Philippine politics.
He was one of the youngest delegates to the 1971
Constitutional Convention. He opposed the Dictatorship,
joined forces with Ninoy Aquino while in exile in
the United States, and was a recipient of the Outstanding
Human Rights Award by the Fund for Free Expression
in New York, USA. Their efforts were to culminate
in the EDSA revolution of 1986.
In 1972 he was declared as one of the Ten Most Outstanding
Leaders of the North along with senior political
figures like Gen. Carlos P. Romulo of Tarlac and
Quintin Paredes of Abra.
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| Visiting
agrarian reform programs for farmers
as President Aquino’s first minister
of agrarian reform in 1986. |
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He became the first Secretary of Agrarian Reform
in 1986. In the Senate he authored the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program the centerpiece program
of the Aquino Administration and the law creating
the Department of Energy which was the basic instrument
of the Ramos administration in solving the brownouts
in 1993.
He has also stood out as Mr. Environment. He chaired
the Senate Committee on Environment for ten years
and has been the leading figure of the environmental
movements in both Houses of Congress having launched
practically all the laws and initiatives in environmental
issues including the Solid waste Management Act,
the first piece of legislation signed by the Macapagal-Arroyo
administration. In recognition of his environmental
achievements both here and abroad, he was awarded
the International Public Policy Achievement, the
first non-western to be honored by the prestigious
Washington-based Climate Institute.
It is as a freedom fighter that Heherson Alvarez
is most in his element. While he was a Member of
the House of Representatives, he initiated the impeachment
complaint filed against former President Joseph
Estrada at the time when everybody else thought
the idea was almost a "fantasy". The filing
of the impeachment complaint paved the way for EDSA
II. In recognition of Alvarez' s effort the People
Power Commission gave him the EDSA People Power
Freedom Award.
He has always been considered an exceptional leader
in time of both danger and peace. A stable statesman
with a broad humane vision for the interest of the
Filipino people.
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