Featured image above shows French Ambassador to the Philippines Michèle Boccoz with Bangsamoro MENRE Director General Atty. Badr Salendab (right) and MENRE Forest Management Services Director Abdul-Jalil Umngan at the French diplomat’s official residence in Forbes Park, Makati City, Metro Manila. (Credit for images: MENRE)
BARMM News
Short link: https://wp.me/paaccn-kID
By EDD K. USMAN | Twitter: @edd181 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 | Facebook: SDN — Science and Digital News
MAKATI CITY (SDN) — France’s top diplomat in the Philippines, Ambassador Michele Boccoz, welcomed on July 28, 2022 visitors from the Bangsamoro region.
The French ambassador to the Philippines, French Embassy Counsellor on Political Affairs Thomas Rollet, and their team hosted at her official residence the callers from the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources and Energy (MENRE), one of the primary line agencies of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (MENRE).
Minister Abdulraof Macacua, also known as “Sammy Gambar”, the chief of staff of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF-BIAF), is MENRE head.
MENRE Director General Atty. Badr E. Salendab and Forest Management Services Director Abdul-Jalil S. Umngan made the call as the ministry is widening its network of partners to further its mandate of protecting and preserving and enhancing the region’s various environmental resources, including addressing climate change and leveraging technology in a world buffeted by a gauntlet of challenges.
The MENRE executives’ visit reciprocated the French ambassador’s visit to the ministry’s office in Cotabato City, the seat of the parliamentary Bangsamoro government. In that visit Boccoz and her delegation discussed a wide range of topics, which they followed with further discussion in the MENRE team’s reciprocal call.
It was learned from MENRE the two parties’ discussion focused “on climate change and sustainable development with three components presented for possible collaboration: 1) technology transfer on minimizing carbon footprint; 2) technical assistance on environmental policy formulation; and 3) technology-based monitoring and evaluation.
Salendab and Umngan’s did not end with the visit to the French envoy’s residence in Forbes Park, Makati, Metro Manila. In the afternoon they met with Australian Embassy Deputy Head of Mission Richard Sisson, and later with European Union (EU) Deputy Head of Delegation Ana Isabel Sanchez Ruiz.
Salendab expressed the MENRE leadership’s “gratitude to the diplomats for their consistent support to the Bangsamoro from the Mindanao peace process to the implementation of the peace agreements, particularly on sustainable environmental development.
In response, the diplomats voiced their readiness for more exploratory meeting in the future.
According to its online portal, MENRE serves as “the primary agency responsible for the exploration, utilization, management, conservation, protection and sustainable development of the region’s environment, natural resources and potential energy sources.” (✓)