ECOWASTE COALITION, INTERFACING DEVELOPMENT INTERVENTIONS FOR SUSTAINABILITY (IDIS), JAYVIE CABAJES, ANECITA ABADIJAS, KISHA ERAH MUAÑA, MA. ERLINDA COLEEN SALAMAT, AND FRANCISC…

Ecowaste Coalition versus Cimatu

The Case

This is a special civil action for certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court, with a prayer for an environmental protection order, filed directly before the Supreme Court by Ecowaste Coalition, Interfacing Development Interventions for Sustainability, and several individual petitioners against the Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The petitioners assail the validity and constitutionality of Department Administrative Order Number 2019-21, the guidelines governing waste-to-energy facilities for the integrated management of municipal solid wastes, issued by then Secretary Roy Cimatu. The case matters because it is the Court's most recent and most emphatic restatement of the doctrine of hierarchy of courts in environmental litigation: even where petitioners have standing and an actual controversy exists, a petition that necessarily requires the reception and evaluation of scientific evidence must first go to the proper tribunal or regulatory agency, not to the Court of last resort.

Procedural History

There were no prior rulings by a trial court or by the Court of Appeals. The petitioners filed their Petition for Certiorari directly before the Supreme Court on June 8, 2021, invoking the Court's original jurisdiction and asking for an environmental protection order. The Court, sitting En Banc, issued a Resolution dated August 3, 2021, requiring Secretary Cimatu to file his comment on the petition and on the application for an environmental protection order. The Office of the Solicitor General filed a Comment on his behalf. The Court thereafter resolved the petition in the decision now under study, dismissing it outright for violation of the doctrine of hierarchy of courts and denying the prayer for an environmental protection order.

Facts

On August 12, 2014, the National Solid Waste Management Commission adopted a resolution creating a multi-agency sub-group to develop guidelines on the establishment and operation of waste-to-energy technologies in the country. The sub-group drew representatives from several government agencies and from the recycling industry. Ecowaste Coalition and its constituent non-governmental organizations, including the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Greenpeace Southeast Asia, Mother Earth Foundation, and Health Care Without Harm, conveyed their objections to the sub-group's efforts. Despite those objections, the Commission issued a resolution in 2016 laying down guidelines governing the establishment and operation of waste-to-energy technologies for municipal solid wastes. The Environmental Management Bureau then conducted public consultations in Mandaluyong City, Cebu City, and Davao City.

On November 26, 2019, Secretary Cimatu approved and signed Department Administrative Order Number 2019-21, adopting the Commission's guidelines. The issuance declared a State policy of adopting a systematic, comprehensive, and ecological solid waste management program, and defined waste-to-energy as the process of converting wastes with various technologies, usually the conversion of non-recyclable waste materials into useable heat, electricity, or fuel. The issuance gave rise to proposals for waste-to-energy facilities across many cities and municipalities, including Quezon City, Puerto Princesa City, Urdaneta City, Baguio City, Cebu City, Davao City, and Tagum City, among others.

Ecowaste Coalition and No Burn Philippines sent a Notice to Sue to the Department, calling on Secretary Cimatu to rescind the administrative order or face legal action. Notwithstanding the notice, the Environmental Management Bureau issued a memorandum circular clarifying the requirements of waste-to-energy projects relative to applications for environmental compliance certificates. These actions prompted the petitioners to file the present petition directly before the Supreme Court.

Issues

• Whether or not Ecowaste Coalition and the other petitioners possess the requisite locus standi to file the petition.
• Whether or not the petitioners failed to comply with the rule on hierarchy of courts.
• Whether or not an actual and justiciable controversy exists in this case.
• Whether or not Secretary Cimatu gravely abused his discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction in issuing Department Administrative Order Number 2019-21.
• Whether or not the petitioners proved that the administrative order and the possible construction of waste-to-energy facilities will cause grave harm to the people's constitutional rights to health and to a balanced and healthful ecology.
• Whether or not the petitioners are entitled to the issuance of an environmental protection order.

Applicable Provisions

Section 5 of Rule 2 of the Rules of Procedure for Environmental Cases provides:

Section 5. Citizen suit. Any Filipino citizen in representation of others, including minors or generations yet unborn, may file an action to enforce rights or obligations under environmental laws. Upon the filing of a citizen suit, the court shall issue an order which shall contain a brief description of the cause of action and the reliefs prayed for, requiring all interested parties to manifest their interest to intervene in the case within fifteen (15) days from notice thereof. The plaintiff may publish the order once in a newspaper of a general circulation in the Philippines or furnish all affected barangays copies of said order. Citizen suits filed under Republic Act Number 8749 and Republic Act Number 9003 shall be governed by their respective provisions.

This provision liberalizes standing in environmental cases and is the basis for the Court's holding that the petitioners possess locus standi.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court ruled that the petitioners possess locus standi. In environmental cases, standing has been given a more liberalized approach, and the citizen suit provision expressly permits any concerned Filipino citizen to file an action for violations of environmental laws. Having alleged that the administrative order would probably cause serious harm to the people's health and the environment, the petitioners may sue.

On the third issue, the Court ruled that an actual case or controversy exists. The parties hold adverse positions regarding the validity of the administrative order vis-à-vis the constitutional rights to health and to a balanced and healthful ecology, and such assertion authorizes the Court to look into any probable transgression of constitutional rights.

On the second issue, however, the Court ruled that the petition must be dismissed for breach of the doctrine of hierarchy of courts. The doctrine acknowledges that the Court is one of last resort and must remain so to effectively perform its constitutional functions. The Court enumerated the exceptions to the doctrine, including genuine issues of constitutionality that must be addressed at the most immediate time, transcendental importance, novelty, and questions dictated by public welfare. But the controlling factor is not the presence of these special and important reasons; it is the nature of the question raised. Only questions of law may be entertained at the first instance. The Court quoted its own distinction:

A question of law arises when there is doubt as to what the law is on a certain state of facts, while there is a question of fact when the doubt arises as to the truth or falsity of the alleged facts. For a question to be one of law, the same must not involve an examination of the probative value of the evidence presented by the litigants or any of them. The resolution of the issue must rest solely on what the law provides on the given set of circumstances. Once it is clear that the issue invites a review of the evidence presented, the question posed is one of fact.

The petition did not raise purely legal questions. To strike down the administrative order, the Court would have to determine whether incineration processes generate harmful by-products such as dioxins and furans, and whether those by-products bio-accumulate in living organisms and cause severe harm to human health. These are ineludibly factual and require the presentation and assessment of scientific evidence. The petitioners should have first brought their factual questions before the proper tribunal or regulatory agency specially equipped to resolve them. Because they bypassed the hierarchy of courts, their immediate resort to the Court was unjustified.

On the remaining substantive issues and on the fifth and sixth issues, the Court did not reach the merits. Since the petition was dismissed on procedural grounds, the prayer for an environmental protection order was denied.

Doctrine

First, locus standi in environmental cases is liberalized. Under the citizen suit provision of the Rules of Procedure for Environmental Cases, any Filipino citizen, in representation of others including minors or generations yet unborn, may file an action to enforce rights or obligations under environmental laws.

Second, an actual case or controversy exists when there is a conflict of legal rights or an assertion of opposite legal claims susceptible of judicial resolution, as distinguished from a hypothetical or abstract dispute.

Third, the doctrine of hierarchy of courts is a practical judicial policy and a constitutional filtering mechanism that restrains parties from directly resorting to the Supreme Court when relief may be obtained before the lower courts. Its exceptions include genuine issues of constitutionality that must be addressed at the most immediate time, transcendental importance, novelty, and questions dictated by public welfare. But the controlling factor is the nature of the question raised: only purely legal questions may be entertained at the first instance. When the question entails the determination of a factual issue indispensable to the resolution of the legal issue, the Court will refuse to resolve it regardless of the allegation of transcendental or paramount importance. The Court is not a trier of facts and is not equipped to receive and weigh evidence in the first instance.

Disposition

The petition for certiorari was dismissed for violating the doctrine of hierarchy of courts, and the prayer for the issuance of an environmental protection order was denied. The respondent Secretary prevailed on procedural grounds.

Remember This

The single line worth memorizing is that bypassing the judicial hierarchy requires more than raising issues of transcendental importance; only purely legal questions may be entertained by the Court at the first instance, and factual questions requiring scientific evidence must first go to the proper tribunal or regulatory agency. Examiners like to use this case in environmental law and remedial law questions on locus standi, the citizen suit, actual case or controversy, and the exceptions to the doctrine of hierarchy of courts.