He is one of the founding members of ALAMIN (Alyansa Laban sa Mina), a provincial alliance of church, local government and civil society organizations in the island of Mindoro that waged a decade of sustained advocacy to protect the rights of the Indigenous Peoples and peasant communities to be impacted by extractive industry.
[4] 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.
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 Fr Gariguez entered San Jose College (Annex) Seminary and took up AB Pre-Divinity (Philosophy) at Ateneo de Manila University.
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.
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.
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.
His range of engagements include: partnership building, social movement mobilization, ecology and agrarian justice advocacy, Self-Help Approach in microfinance, promotion of indigenous peoples rights, community empowerment, integral and sustainable development, managing social development programs, change process management, media advocacy, climate justice,[11] among others.
[12] Locally, Fr Gariguez is a passionate advocate of social transformation, development issues and ecological movements,[13][14] working in very close collaboration with the civil society organizations.
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.
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.
[16][17] In July 2020, he resigned as Executive Secretary of NASSA/Caritas Philippines[18] 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.
“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) “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.
“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) “Ecological Spirituality, Culture and Development: Approaches and Methodologies in Doing Dialogic Research,” In Unsettling Discourses: The Theory and Practice of Indigenous Studies.