MANILA – Former Environment Secretary Fulgencio "Jun" Factoran Jr. and a board member of Rappler passed away on Palm Sunday, April 5, at the age of 76 after battling a lingering illness, the news website said.
Rappler editor-at-large Marites Vitug, a long-time friend of Factoran, also sent the news to ABS-CBN.
Factoran served as deputy executive secretary under President Corazon Aquino from 1986 to 1987. She then appointed him secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) which he led from 1987 to 1992.
"In the 5 years that Jun led the DENR, he shifted priorities, taking away many logging licenses of timber concessionaires so that stewardship of the forests be transferred to communities who lived there. He made reforestation his centerpiece program," Vitug wrote about Factoran in a tribute published by Rappler.
Factoran gave Vitug access to documents and other information that she used for her award-winning book on the environment, "Power from the Forest: The Politics of Logging," published in 1993.
Before the fall of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986, Factoran was a human rights lawyer and co-founder of Mabini, or the Movement of Attorneys for Brotherhood, Integrity, and Nationalism Inc.
He also served as chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Electrification Administration; Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Philippines Charity Sweepstakes Office; Member, Board of Trustees of the Development Academy of the Philippines; and member of the Board of Trustees of the Government Service Insurance System from 1998 until 2004.
The veteran lawyer also established the Factoran and Associates Law Office.
"Factoran was married to the late Kaye Mesina. He is survived by their 4 children Yazmin, Gertrude Anne, Fulgencio III, and Roberto Carlo, as well as in-laws and grandchildren," Rappler said on its website.
Jun Factoran, Fulgencio Factoran Jr., DENR, MABINI, anti-Marcos activist, human rights lawyer, Rappler, environment secretary