The petitioners filed a civil action against the Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for granting timber license agreements (TLAs) to various corporations, arguing this violated their constitutional right to a balanced and healthful ecology. The trial court dismissed the case, finding TLAs were contracts protected by due process. However, the Supreme Court ruled the petitioners had a valid cause of action. It recognized an intergenerational responsibility to preserve the environment for future generations. Additionally, the right to a healthy environment carries a duty not to impair it. Therefore, violating this right through actions like the TLAs gives rise to legal recourse.
The petitioners filed a civil action against the Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for granting timber license agreements (TLAs) to various corporations, arguing this violated their constitutional right to a balanced and healthful ecology. The trial court dismissed the case, finding TLAs were contracts protected by due process. However, the Supreme Court ruled the petitioners had a valid cause of action. It recognized an intergenerational responsibility to preserve the environment for future generations. Additionally, the right to a healthy environment carries a duty not to impair it. Therefore, violating this right through actions like the TLAs gives rise to legal recourse.
The petitioners filed a civil action against the Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for granting timber license agreements (TLAs) to various corporations, arguing this violated their constitutional right to a balanced and healthful ecology. The trial court dismissed the case, finding TLAs were contracts protected by due process. However, the Supreme Court ruled the petitioners had a valid cause of action. It recognized an intergenerational responsibility to preserve the environment for future generations. Additionally, the right to a healthy environment carries a duty not to impair it. Therefore, violating this right through actions like the TLAs gives rise to legal recourse.
The petitioners filed a civil action against the Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for granting timber license agreements (TLAs) to various corporations, arguing this violated their constitutional right to a balanced and healthful ecology. The trial court dismissed the case, finding TLAs were contracts protected by due process. However, the Supreme Court ruled the petitioners had a valid cause of action. It recognized an intergenerational responsibility to preserve the environment for future generations. Additionally, the right to a healthy environment carries a duty not to impair it. Therefore, violating this right through actions like the TLAs gives rise to legal recourse.
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∆ Oposa vs.
Factoran
Syllabus: The concept of Intergenerational Responsibility
(a) The concept of intergenerational responsibility recognizes “the rhythm and harmony of nature” which inescapably required the “management, renewal and conservation” of natural capital, and imposed on each generation a responsibility to preserve nature for succeeding generations. This means that the right to a balanced and sound environment constitutes, at the same time, the performance of their obligation to ensure the protection of that right for generations to come. (b) The right to a balanced and healthful ecology (Article II, Section 16) concerns nothing less than self-preservation and self-perpetuation, the advancement of which may even be said to predate all governments and constitutions. It need not even be written in the Constitution for they are assumed to exist from the inception of humankind. It imposes upon the state a solemn obligation to preserve first and protect and advance the second. (c) The right to healthful environment necessarily carries with it the correlative duty of not impairing the environment and, therefore, sanctions may be provided for impairment of environmental balance. (d) A denial or violation of that right by the other who has the corelative duty or obligation to respect or protect the same gives rise to a cause of action.
Issue: Whether petitioners have a cause of action.
Facts: Herein petitioners filed before the RTC a civil action against herein respondent Factoran, then Secretary of DENR, for granting timber license agreements (TLAs) to various corporations. Such TLAs have, according to the petitioners, adverse effects and is detrimental and violative of their right to a balanced and healthful ecology (Art. II, Section 16 of the Constitution) The respondent Judge granted the petition of the respondent to dismiss the case, and further contend that impairment of contracts (alleging that TLAs are contracts) must be done with the due process of the law.
Ruling: Yes. The complaint focuses on one specific fundamental legal right — the right to a balanced and healthful ecology which, for the first time in our nation's constitutional history, is solemnly incorporated in the fundamental law. Such a right belongs to a different category of rights altogether for it concerns nothing less than self-preservation and self-perpetuation- the advancement of which may even be said to predate all governments and constitutions. It need not even be written in the Constitution for they are assumed to exist from the inception of humankind.
The right to a balanced and healthful ecology carries with it the correlative duty to refrain from impairing the environment. Respondent’s correlative obligation speaks of the “responsibilities of each generation as trustee and guardian of the environment for succeeding generations”. Hence, a denial or violation of that right by the other who has the corelative duty or obligation to respect or protect the same gives rise to a cause of action.
Futher, it must be emphasized that the political question doctrine is no longer, the insurmountable obstacle to the exercise of judicial power or the impenetrable shield that protects executive and legislative actions from judicial inquiry or review.
Lastly, TLAs are no contract, property or a property right protected by the due process clause. Even assuming that such are contract, the non-impairment clause must still yield to the police power of the state, when general interest so requires.
