Environmental rights drafted into proposed federal charter

The consultative committee (concom) plans to include in the new constitution self-executing provisions guaranteeing the people’s right to a healthful natural environment.

Concom chair and retired chief justice Reynato Puno said the committee plans to “put in all self-executing provisions in the Bill of Rights.”

“This time around, when we redraft and revise the constitution, we would like to think that it is about time that we constitutionalize this provision, the right of the people to a healthful environment,” Puno said Monday.

“This way, the right of the people to a healthy environment will be put at par with civil and political rights of the people,” he added.

The proposal includes the right to clean air and water; right to a healthy environment and ecology; right to the preservation of ecosystems; right to be protected from activities that destroy the environment, and right to sustainable development.

Also proposed are the right to compensation or payment for damage to environment, recourse to courts for immediate protection, and stronger Writ of Kalikasan, which will not be subject to withdrawal or revision by Congress or the Supreme Court.

Before Puno retired as chief justice in 2010, he introduced the Writ of Kalikasan.

Under the rules of court, the Writ of Kalikasan is defined as “a remedy available to a natural or juridical person, entity authorized by law, people’s organization, nongovernmental organization, or any public interest group accredited by or registered with any government agency, on behalf of persons whose constitutional right to a balanced and healthful ecology is violated, or threatened with violation by an unlawful act or omission of a public official or employee, or private individual or entity, involving environmental damage of such magnitude as to prejudice the life, health or property of inhabitants in two or more cities or provinces.”

The self-executing right to a healthful environment also aims to ensure that the rights are equally demandable against the state and its agencies, meaning violators will be held accountable for any environment-related crime.

Puno explained that the self-executing right to a healthful environment was proposed due to natural calamities, activities harmful to the environment, and the “lack of enforcement of laws in the environment.”

“This lack of enforcement can be traced to failure of local governments to enforce relevant laws,” he said.

“If we constitutionalize the right to a good and healthy environment, you will be empowering the citizenry to demand from the state and its agencies, including constituent units or the federal states, to enforce environment laws and correspondingly to hold them accountable for failure to implement laws,” he added.

Puno hopes that the environmental rights provision in the proposed federal constitution would receive “less opposition” from Congress.

Currently, Article II Section 16 of the 1987 Constitution mandates that “the State shall protect and advance the right of the people to a balanced and healthful ecology in accord with the rhythm and harmony of nature.”

Puno noted that the existing provision is not self-executing, hence mandating Congress “to pass a lot of legislation in order to protect the environment,” like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Solid Waste Management Act, Philippine Mining Act and Laguna Lake Development Authority Act.