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.