What is Environmental Planning?

The law that defines environmental planning is of 1978 vintage. This is Presidential Decree no. 1308 entitled “Law Regulating the Environmental Planning Profession in the Philippines” and promulgated on 02 March 1978 by then President Ferdinand Marcos.

Environmental planning is defined as “activities concerned with the management and development of land, as well as the preservation, conservation, and rehabilitation of the human environment” (Sec. 2[a]). The practice of environmental planning covers professional services in the form of technical consultation, plan preparation, and/or implementation involving the following:

(a) Development of a community, town, city, or region;

(b) Development of a site for a particular need such as housing, centers for activities concerned with research, education, culture, recreation, or government, industrial estates, agriculture, and water resources, including creating a spatial arrangements of buildings, utilities and communication routes;

(c) Land use and zoning plans for the management and development preservation, conservation, rehabilitation, and control of the environment; and,

(d) Pre-investment, pre-feasibility, and feasibility studies. (Sec. 3).

It is unlawful for any person to engage in the practice of environmental planning without having been registered pursuant to P.D. no. 1308.

Ondoy aftermath

It came and shocked all of us. We never expected that it would come this early. Although we’ve been warning people that in the near future our environment would show us its full force, we never thought that the near future we’re talking about refers to the present already.

The destruction that Ondoy brought us made many of us realize that it is high time that we take our environment seriously. Being the stewards of the environment, we’ve been tasked to make sure that the next generation would still have adequate resources for them to be able to have a life that not only facilitates physical but, more importantly, human development. 

The problem, however, is that instead of working together, people, especially the powers that be, have started the blame game. Nobody wants to take responsibility (except for Bayani Fernando who, admitted his responsibility for the flooding). The DENR Secretary wants to sue the LLDA Chair. The LLDA Chair, on the other hand, blames the DENR Secretary. The local government officials concerned are very silent as to what they have failed to do to prepare for a deluge like Ondoy. These officials should be reminded that the management of the environment is one of the services decentralized to them.

I believe that every one of us should be blamed for what had happened. It is not just the government. The people’s way of living also aggravated the effects of Ondoy. The world has seen how we have been helping each other during and after the deluge that’s Ondoy. It is high time that we show to the world that we are ready to take our responsibility as stewards of the environment. 

Earth Day 2009 (22 April)

Happy Earth Day!

Planetary Malpractice: A Prod to Government Leaders

In the last few decades, the world has witnessed the fury of Nature- the Americas experienced its strongest hurricanes ever; the Asia Pacific Region witnessed its most destructive typhoons and tornados; there have been unexpected perilous floods; and, so on and so forth. The environment, more particularly the climate system, has changed. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change attributed these catastrophic changes in our climate system to global warming. It concluded with high probability that this change in climate is driven more than by anthropogenic factors rather than natural variability.

Global climate change presents new and unique challenges to the current Philippine legal framework for the protection of the environment. The concern today is how government leaders could be compelled to take serious, sustained and effective actions in addressing climate change. This paper proposes the idea that a novel concept of planetary malpractice, which is based on the principles of professional negligence, can be applied even if the current legal framework is not changed. This can be done by using the landmark environmental cases, such as Oposa vs. Factoran, Jr. that breathed life to the Constitutional right to a balanced and healthful ecology, in arguing that the violation of this right by a government leader is beyond the protection from being sued accorded to them by the Administrative Code of 1987.

In the analysis, the usual defense of lack of cause of action and standing, non-justiciability, and the general rule that public officials are not capable of being sued except for certain specific circumstances provided for by law, can be hurdled without difficulty if the current trend in jurisprudence is taken into consideration. This paper argues that the Supreme Court considers environmental cases as one of transcendental importance calling for the relaxation of procedural rules.

It is recommended, however, that the right to a balanced and healthful ecology be stated in clear in terms by amending Article 32 of the Civil Code so that there will be no ambiguity in terms of the applicability of planetary malpractice in Philippine jurisprudence.

Striking a Balance

It is difficult for a man, scavenging on the garbage dump created by affluence and profligate consumption and extravagance of the rich or fishing in the murky waters of the Pasig River and the Laguna Lake or making a clearing in the forest so that he can produce food for his family, to understand why protecting birds, fish, and trees is more important than protecting him and keeping his family alive.

How do we strike a balance between environmental protection, on the one hand, and the individual personal interests of people, on the other?

- HERMOSISIMA, JR., J.

Laguna Lake Development Authority vs. Court of Appeals, et al., G.R. no. 120865-71, December 7, 1995