DONALD MEAD, PETITIONER, VS. HON. MANUEL A. ARGEL IN HIS CAPACITY AS PRESIDING JUDGE IN THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF RIZAL, BRANCH XXXV AND THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESP…

Mead versus Argel

The Case

This is a petition for certiorari with preliminary injunction brought by Donald Mead against the Presiding Judge of Branch Thirty-Five of the Court of First Instance of Rizal, sitting in Caloocan City, and against the People of the Philippines. Mead was one of two accused in a criminal case for violation of the anti-pollution law, and he asked the Supreme Court to annul the trial judge's orders denying his motion to quash. The case matters because it fixes who may bring a criminal prosecution under the pollution statute: the National Water and Air Pollution Control Commission must first determine that pollution exists, and only then may a fiscal file the information. It is a study in the exclusivity of an administrative body's authority over the regular prosecution service.

Procedural History

The Provincial Fiscal of Rizal filed an information against Mead and a certain Isaac Arivas before the Court of First Instance of Rizal, and the case was assigned to the branch presided over by the respondent judge. Mead moved to quash on two grounds: that the trial court had no jurisdiction, and that the Provincial Fiscal had no legal personality to file the information. The respondent judge denied the motion to quash in an order dated September fifth, nineteen seventy-five, and denied the motion for reconsideration in a later order. Mead then came to the Supreme Court on certiorari with preliminary injunction, alleging that the judge acted in excess of or without jurisdiction. The Supreme Court required the respondents to comment and issued a temporary restraining order enjoining enforcement of the questioned orders until further direction.

Facts

On or about August twenty-third, nineteen seventy-two, and for some time before and after, the Insular Oil Refinery Company operated in Malabon, Rizal. Mead was its president and Arivas its general manager. The information alleged that the two, conspiring and helping one another, willfully, unlawfully and feloniously drained or otherwise disposed into the highway canal, or caused, permitted or suffered to be drained or allowed to seep into that waterway, the industrial and other waste matters discharged from the refinery's operations.

The information further alleged that this caused pollution of the waterway, resulting in damage or destruction to the living plants in the vicinity and creating a hazard to health and property in the same vicinity. The charge was a violation of Section 9, in relation to Section 10, of Republic Act Number Thirty-Nine Thirty-One, the law creating the National Water and Air Pollution Control Commission.

What the record shows is that no prior determination had been made by the Commission that the acts of Mead had caused pollution. The fiscal filed the information on his own initiative, without any finding or ruling by the Commission that the law or any of its orders had been violated.

Issues

• Whether or not a petition for certiorari may be entertained to question the denial of a motion to quash in a criminal case, instead of requiring the accused to go to trial and appeal from an adverse judgment.
• Whether or not the Provincial Fiscal of Rizal had the authority to file the information for violation of Republic Act Number Thirty-Nine Thirty-One without a prior finding or determination by the Commission that pollution exists.
• Whether or not the respondent judge had jurisdiction to take cognizance of the offense charged in the information.

Applicable Provisions

Section 9 of Republic Act Number Thirty-Nine Thirty-One defines the prohibited act:

SEC. 9 Prohibitions. — No person shall throw, run, drain, or otherwise dispose into any of the water and/or atmospheric air of the Philippines, or cause, permit, suffer to be thrown, run, drain, allow to see or otherwise dispose into such waters or atmospheric air, any organic or inorganic matter or any substance in gaseous or liquid form that shall cause pollution of such waters or atmospheric air.

The offense charged is the act of causing pollution of a waterway, so the meaning of pollution is decisive.

Section 2, paragraph (a), of the same law defines pollution:

(a) ‘Pollution' means such alteration of the physical, chemical and/or biological properties of any water and/or atmospheric air of the Philippines, or any such discharge of any liquid, gaseous or solid substance into any of the waters and/or atmospheric air of the country as will or is likely to create or render such waters and/or atmospheric air harmful or detrimental or injurious to public health, safety or welfare, or to domestic, commercial, industrial, agricultural, recreational or other legitimate uses, or to livestock, wild animals, birds, fish or other aquatic life.

Because pollution is a technical and scientific question, its determination is lodged in the Commission and not in the fiscal or the court.

Section 8 of the law, on proceedings before the Commission, supplies the key limitation:

On matters, however, not related to nuisance, no court action shall be initiated until the Commission shall have finally ruled thereon and no order of the Commission discontinuing the discharge of waste shall be stayed by the filing of said court action, unless the court issues an injunction as provided for in the Rules of Court.

This is the provision the Court reads as barring the fiscal from initiating the criminal action before the Commission has ruled.

Ruling

On the procedural question, the Court acknowledged the general rule that the remedy of an accused whose motion to quash is denied is to go to trial and, if convicted, to appeal, reiterating the grounds in the motion to quash. But the Court held that exceptional circumstances justify certiorari in the interest of a more enlightened and substantial justice, as declared in Yap versus Lutero and Pineda versus Bartolome. Here the accused assailed the very jurisdiction of the court, which is a more compelling reason to resolve the issue at once, to spare the court unnecessary trial and the accused inconvenience, anxiety, embarrassment, and expense.

On the principal question, the Court held that the clear legislative intention is to vest in the Commission the exclusive authority to determine the existence of pollution and to prosecute violations of the law. Section 8 expressly provides that, except for nuisance, no court action shall be initiated until the Commission has finally ruled. The Court rejected the argument that this refers only to civil actions, finding no basis in the context of the law or in its purpose for such a distinction. It likewise rejected the view that the authority is concurrent with that of fiscals: the absence of an express declaration of exclusivity does not detract from the clear intention, gathered from the philosophy of the law and its several provisions.

The Court explained that determining pollution requires investigation, public hearings, and the collection of information, and that the definition of pollution connotes specialized technical and scientific knowledge not ordinarily within the competence of fiscals or of those sitting in a court of justice. The law itself requires engineers, chemists, bio-chemists, physicists and other technicians as basic personnel, and prescribes scientific qualifications for the commissioners. The Court noted that vesting such authority in an administrative body to the exclusion of the regular prosecution service is not new, citing Yao Lit versus Geraldez on the Commissioner of Immigration, the Anti-Dummy Law cases, and R. B. Industrial Development Company versus Enage.

On jurisdiction, the Court held that because the information was filed prematurely and without authority, the respondent judge was without jurisdiction to take cognizance of the offense charged.

Doctrine

The Commission created under Republic Act Number Thirty-Nine Thirty-One has the exclusive authority to determine the existence of pollution and to prosecute violations of that law. A fiscal or public prosecutor may file an information for violation of the law only if the Commission has first made a finding or determination that the law or any of its orders had been violated; absent that prior determination, the information is premature and unauthorized, and the court acquires no jurisdiction. The exception is a court action based on the New Civil Code on nuisance, which the Commission's authority does not exclude. The doctrine rests on the last paragraph of Section 8, which commands that on matters not related to nuisance no court action shall be initiated until the Commission shall have finally ruled thereon, read with the definition of pollution in Section 2, paragraph (a).

Disposition

The petition was granted; the questioned orders of the respondent judge were annulled and set aside, and the respondent judge was ordered to dismiss the criminal case for lack of jurisdiction, with no costs.

Remember This

Memorize the line that no court action, except one based on nuisance, may be initiated until the Commission has finally ruled on the alleged pollution. Examiners use this case to test the exclusivity of administrative determination over the regular prosecution service, and to test when certiorari may substitute for trial and appeal after a motion to quash is denied.