Antonio La Viña

Tony La Viña
Personal details
Born
Antonio Gabriel Maestrado La Viña

(1959-10-22) October 22, 1959 (age 64)
Cagayan de Oro
SpouseMaria Carmen Bonto
Children3
Alma materAteneo de Manila University (BA)
University of the Philippines (JD)
Yale University (LL.M & JSD)

Antonio Gabriel "Tony" Maestrado La Viña (born October 22, 1959)is at present Associate Director for climate policy and international relations and concurrently Head, Klima Center of Manila Observatory and a professor of law, philosophy, politics and governance in several universities in the Philippines. He is also a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the Chair of the Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy Department of the Philippine Judicial Academy. the founding President of the Movement Against Disinformation, and the founding Chair of the Mindanao Climate Justice Resource Facility. 

Dean Tony is the former Dean of the Ateneo de Manila University School of Government, co-founder of Ashoka Philippines and the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, and a former environmental undersecretary of the Philippines. He obtained his doctorate and master of laws degrees from Yale University and his JD and AB Philosophy degrees from the University of the Philippines and Ateneo de Manila University respectively. He placed third in the 1998 bar examinations.

Education

La Viña was born in Cagayan de Oro to lawyer and academic Gabriel La Viña and Lourdes Maestrado y Chaves, who would later serve as city councilor for Cagayan de Oro, and is the daughter of Silvino Dacapio Maestrado, former Congressman for the 1st District of Misamis Province.[1] He is the younger brother of former SSS Commissioner and DOT undersecretary Jose Gabriel "Pompee" La Viña.

He graduated from the Ateneo de Manila University in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy. After teaching philosophy at the Ateneo and Xavier University, he took up law at UP College of Law at the University of the Philippines Diliman. He would later place third in the 1989 Philippine Bar Examination (one of his schoolmates was former Philippine Defense Secretary and Congressman Gilbert Teodoro, who placed first in the bar that year[2]). La Viña spent several years as a professor of law at UP in the 1990s, and as a human rights and environmental attorney serving indigenous peoples and other local communities.

From 1991 to 1995, La Viña attended Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut, for his Master of Laws and Doctor of Juridical Science degrees. At Yale, he focused on international environmental law and policy and wrote a dissertation on climate change. That dissertation was later published as a book (Climate Change and Developing Countries: Negotiating a Global Regime) by the Institute of International Legal Studies of the University of the Philippines Law Center.

Career

While studying at the University of the Philippines College of Law, La Viña co-founded with Supreme Court Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, Dr. Gus Gatmaytan now of Ateneo de Davao University, and Atty Nonette Royo who is director of the International Land and Forest Tenure Facility based in Stockholm, Sweden, the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center-Kasama sa Kalikasan (LRC), a human rights and environmental organization. He was LRC Director of Research and Development from 1987–91 and then from 1993–96.

In 1996, at the age of 36, he was appointed Undersecretary for Legal and Legislative Affairs of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). As Undersecretary, his office emphasized the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, efficient and fair access to justice in administrative decisions, public participation and stakeholder consensus building in environmental decision-making, and innovative programs in environmental regulation.[3][note 1] Part of his duties included serving as the DENR's Crisis Manager, where he dealt with the department's response to, among others, the Marcopper mining disaster.

In addition, he was chief negotiator for the Philippines in the implementation of Conventions on Biological Diversity and Climate Change from 1996-1998, where he was recognized as the lead negotiator for developing countries in the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. He served as Undersecretary until June 1998.

From 1998 to 2006, he was director of the Biological Resources Program and Senior Fellow in Institutions and Governance of the World Resources Institute in Washington D.C.,[4] with several offers for plum posts in international organizations.

In 2006, La Viña returned to the Philippines to accept an invitation to become dean of the Ateneo School of Government (ASoG), succeeding acting dean Antonette Palma-Angeles. With his administration, ASoG had emerged as a leading Philippine resource on environmental and climate change governance, being tapped by state, civil society, and international organizations for the design and implementation of local and national environmental policy (e.g., climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction,[5] REDD+[6]). It has also gained recognition for advancing research, advocacies, and partnerships in social accountability, political reform, inclusive development and innovation, and social entrepreneurship.

In addition to these roles, he served as adviser to the Philippine delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and Coordinator in 2011-2012 for the Group of 77 and China for the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action on Climate Change.[7] He served as a key facilitator for the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation-Plus (REDD+) negotiations under the UNFCCC from 2009 to 2011. He was a lead negotiator and spokesperson of the Philippine delegation during the 2015 Paris climate negotiations.

La Viña's other current corporate and policy positions include:

  • Member, Board of Trustees, Manila Observatory[8]
  • Member, Board of Trustees, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)[9]
  • Member, Board of Trustees, Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE)
  • Previously, La Vina was a member of the Board of Trustees of Bioversity International (based in Rome, Italy) and Center for Forestry Research (CIFOR, based in Bogor, Indonesia). He was chair, Board of Trustees, Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia (ISEA)[10]
  • Convenor, Movement Against Disinformation

Authorship and Publication

As an academician, lawyer, and environmental expert, La Viña has authored or edited numerous books, anthologies, monographs, and journal articles, mostly on environmental topics and issues. His experience in environmental issues has led him to author the chapter on environmental law and cases for the Benchbook for Philippine Trial Judges (Revised and Expanded); and Philippine Law and Ecology (Vol. 1: National Laws and Policies[11] and Vol. 2: International Treaties and Rules on Procedure), the last two of which are compilations of laws, international instruments, legal cases, and commentary on the constellation of Philippine environmental policy and jurisprudence.

He maintains a twice-weekly column, "Eagle Eyes", in the Manila Standard Today, and contributes to the Philippine social news site Rappler, where he comments on Philippine and international issues on the environment, socio-economic development, governance, and current affairs. He also maintains a column, "The Riverman's Vista" in the Mindanao current affairs news website MindaNews.[12]

Personal life

La Viña is married to Maria Carmen Bonto-La Viña, a psychotherapist. They have three sons.

Notes

  1. ^ In The Green Tiger: The Costs of Economic Decline in the Philippines, Barbara Goldoftas tackles, as a case study, the application of an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC), being contested by residents of the affected site, which case was handled by La Viña during his term as DENR Undersecretary, and which demonstrates the principles he applied in his term: "In the mid-1990s, a proposal... to build a cement plant and sprawling industrial center in Bolinao, Pangasinan, split the fishing town... The undersecretary responsible for the case at the (DENR), Antonio La Vina (sic), focused the decision about the necessary Environmental Compliance Certificate on the principal of social acceptability: whether or not the rapid industrialization would be acceptable to the community. This case study provides an important example of how difficult decisions about sustainable development can be made at the local level, how they can be made with transparency and community involvement, and how a community may respond to the potential changes brought about by rapid industrialization."

References

  1. ^ Lluch, Enrico (December 9, 2010). "The Leverage of Principles". Sun-Star Cagayan de Oro. Retrieved March 10, 2013.
  2. ^ Tiongco, Maritoni; Beatriz Bermundo; Katreena Cosme; Eliza Ferolino (May 1, 2010). "'Scary brilliant' guy, zero social, love life". Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Retrieved 10 March 2013.
  3. ^ Goldoftas, Barbara (2006). "Ch. 6: "No Need Cement"". The Green Tiger: The Costs of Economic Decline in the Philippines. Oxford University Press.
  4. ^ "Tony La Viña: Commentary Response Author". World Resources Report. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
  5. ^ "ASoG gets NDRRMC Seat". Ateneo School of Government Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation (DRR-CCA) Program. March 13, 2013. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
  6. ^ Philippine REDD-plus Strategy Team. "The Philippine National REDD-plus Strategy". (Ateneo School of Government listed as a participating institution in cover page; La Viña as consultation participant in pp. 75 and 79)
  7. ^ "Antonio La Viña's Twitter post". August 31, 2012. Retrieved 15 March 2013.
  8. ^ "About The Manila Observatory: Board of Trustees". Manila Observatory. 2012. Archived from the original on 14 August 2012. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  9. ^ "About CIEL – Board of Trustees". Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  10. ^ "Membership". Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia. Retrieved 28 March 2013. (La Viña listed as one of the founding members of ISEA)
  11. ^ "University of the Philippines College of Law". 2013. Retrieved 25 March 2013. The UP Law Centennial Textbook Writing Project announces the release of three new books: "Issues and Questions: Technology, the Law and You" by Prof. Gigo Alampay, "Philippine Law and Ecology (Vol. 1: National Laws and Policies)" by Antonio G.M. La Vina, and "Universal Human Rights: A Reality in the Constitution of the Philippines" by Dean Froilan M. Bacuñgan.
  12. ^ "Posts by Antonio G. M. La Viña". MindaNews. Retrieved 28 March 2013.
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