Edwin Gariguez

In July 2020, he resigned as Executive Secretary of NASSA/Caritas Philippines and returned to Oriental Mindoro where he now works as Social Action Director for the Apostolic Vicariate of Calapan and Development Program Support Coordinator for the Mangyan Mission. Concurrently, he is also teaching Ecological Philosophy at St. Augustine College Seminary.

“Localization and Partnership Building in Haiyan Response,” research documentation report submitted to Caritas Asia for Localization Forum in Bangkok, January 27, 2020.

Internationally, Fr Gariguez represented Asia to the Representative Council of Caritas Internationalis in Rome, while at the same time being a member of Regional Commission for Caritas Asia from 2019 to 2020. He also served as chair for the Regional Working Group for Institutional Development and Community Strengthening (IDCS) for Caritas Asia from 2018 to 2020.

In 2018, Fr Gariguez, with encouragement and support from Caritas PH Board of Trustees, founded the Center for Resiliency, Empowerment and Integral Development (CREED), dubbed as the “social action academy” in the Philippines, envisioned to develop the required professionalism, leadership and pastoral competence among the diocesan social action workers.

Ecological Spirituality and the Mangyan Alangans of Mindoro. (2017). National Secretariat for Social Action (NASSA).

In 2016, Fr Gariguez co-designed a capacity building modular course in partnership with the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP). He also joined the extended training program and obtained a Certificate in Productivity and Quality Management, with specialization in Community & Area Development, Resilience and Sustainability.

In 2016, Fr Gariguez initiated a national program called "Lead To Heal" as a strategy for capacity building of the pastoral workers of the Church in the Philippines. This program was in partnership with the Development Academy of the Philippines and Future by Design - Pilipinas. During his term, NASSA/Caritas Philippines has attained a milestone in upscaling its humanitarian competence and global engagements locally and even globally. But the capacity strengthening strategy has to reach the level of the diocesan partners. It is to this end that the program aimed to provide technical expertise to improve the competences of the dioceses in doing development-sector-based engagements, humanitarian response, climate change adaptation and environment sustainability- driven development works and advocacy actions.

Awarded by the Xavier University, Ateneo de Cagayan the Honoris Causa: Doctor of Philosophy on March 12, 2016,

Awarded by the Earth Day Jam Foundation the GAIA Award in April 2016

“Market Economy and the Process of Cultural Redefinition in Mangyan Society,” BAYBAYIN vo1, no.1, pp. 90–103. (2015)

“Ecological Spirituality, Culture and Development: Approaches and Methodologies in Doing Dialogic Research,” In Unsettling Discourses: The Theory and Practice of Indigenous Studies. Cordillera Studies Center. (2014)

"The Challenge for Vatican II Renewal – From Anthropocentrism to Ecological Spirituality," paper delivered for the Forum on Church and Ecology, De La Salle University. (2014)

In one of his research works on mining issues, Fr Gariguez collaborated with Clive Wicks and Robert Goodland in doing a case study on Mindoro and the impact of mining on agriculture and food security. The published work is entitled “Philippines: Mining or Food.” The full document is available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20130603000715/http://www.eccr.org.uk/module-htmlpages-display-pid-52.html

“Peace and Resource Conflict: Mining and Philippine Church Experience,” paper delivered on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Pacem in Terris, at the Vatican City, Rome. (2013).

“Community Organizing for Environmental Defense,” case study on community organizing commissioned for documentation by CODE-NGO. (2013)

Edwin Gariguez is a Filipino religious leader and environmentalist. He was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2012, for his voicing of protests on behalf of indigenous communities against large scale mining projects in the Philippines. Edwin Gariguez was the former executive secretary of National Secretariat for Social Action (NASSA), the humanitarian, advocacy and social development arm of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).

Mindoro Campaigns: Protecting Island Ecology, Defending Peoples’ Rights. (2012). National Secretariat for Social Action (NASSA).

2012 Goldman Prize Award, Island and Islands Nations

In October 2011, Gariguez participated on policy and performance standard review of World Bank and International Finance Corporation in October 2010, wherein ALAMIN's experience on asserting free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples was presented in a panel discussion in World Bank Headquarters in Washington DC.

From 2010 to 2020, Fr Gariguez was appointed as the Executive Secretary the National Secretariat for Social Action (NASSA)/Caritas Philippines of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). From November 2013 to 2017, he took responsibility for the over-all coordination of the Haiyan emergency response. NASSA/Caritas Philippines, under his leadership, had launched the most massive, far-reaching emergency, humanitarian program for the Church, with 3.2 Billion-Peso budget to sustain the rehabilitation program in 9 dioceses, for three years.

In November 2009, Fr Gariguez, together with 25 members of ALAMIN launched a hunger strike before the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to protest the flawed and questionable issuance of Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) to the Norwegian mining company. And this effort to pressure the national government was successful and further investigation of the anomalous ECC was ordered to be conducted on the ground.

Alangan Mangyan of Mindoro. (2009). National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).

Articulating Mangyan-Alangans’ Indigenous Ecological Spirituality as Paradigm for Sustainable Development and Well-Being. (2008). Unpublished Dissertation, Asian Social Institute.

In 2005 he took up masteral course in Sociology-Anthropology from Ateneo de Manila University, for a semester. He later transferred to Asian Social Institute (ASI) to enroll for the Doctoral Program on Applied Cosmic Anthropology (ACA). The ACA Program gives emphasis on the application of knowledge and research to the concrete social realities that students face as catalyst of development or as agents of change. Fr Gariguez finished his PhD in 2008. His dissertation expounds on the ecological spirituality of the indigenous peoples in Mindoro as a practical framework and alternative paradigm for sustainable development and well-being.

At the national level, Fr Gariguez is one of the convenors and current member of the Council of Leaders of Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), a country-wide coalition of organizations and individuals from mining-affected communities, NGOs, POs, Church-based organizations and academic institutions that was formed in 2004. ATM serves as a watchdog that actively engages and challenges the Government, international finance corporations, transnational mining corporations, and other key players to expose their wrongdoings and failures of laws and policies in the mining industry.

“Social Movement and the Struggle Against Globalized Mining: A Case Study of the Mindoro Nickel Project,” paper presented to the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ateneo de Manila University. (2003)

From 1998 to 2000, he took part in the campaign for transformative politics by accepting the position of executive secretary to the municipal mayor of Victoria, Oriental Mindoro.

With the aggressive promotion of mining in the Philippines, he was challenged to work with the indigenous communities in pursuing their right to self-determination and in ensuring that their rights are respected as provided in the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997. Part of this campaign is to oppose the incursion of transnational mining companies to the ancestral lands of the indigenous peoples and in critical ecosystems. Large-scale mining, specifically the proposed Mindoro Nickel Project of Intex Resources, threatens the very survival of the indigenous peoples because a big part of the mining tenement overlaps with the ancestral domains of Alangan and Tadyawan tribes.

“Harnessing Multi-stakeholder Mechanisms to Promote Global Environmental Priorities at the Local Level: The Case of Naujan Lake National Park.” In Taking the People's Road: Bold Experiments in Making Participatory Governance Work. (1997)

Fr Gariguez was ordained to the Catholic priesthood on April 1, 1993, committing himself to serve in the local Church of Calapan in Oriental Mindoro. Along with the challenge of pursuing the agenda for being Church of the Poor, he led the program for the major sectoral block of disadvantaged peasantry by organizing Peasant Empowerment and Advocacy Network (Peasant-Net), a provincial federation of poor farmers.

Fr Gariguez entered San Jose College (Annex) Seminary and took up AB Pre-Divinity (Philosophy) at Ateneo de Manila University. He obtained his master's degree in Theology from Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo de Manila University and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1992. He also obtained an STB degree from Fujen Catholic University, an affiliate of the same school.

NASSA/Caritas Philippines is a national network serving the Church in its mission to be truly a Church of the Poor, implementing concrete programs and addressing pressing issues concerning the voiceless sectors and the less-privileged. NASSA, since its foundation in 1966, has been committed to carry out its mandate by underpinning sustainable development and social transformation efforts through development programs and projects that are designed to benefit the disadvantaged and the oppressed.