Oposa v Factorian
30 July 1993
Supreme Court of the Republic of the Philippines
Case No. G.R. No. 101083 July 30, 1993
Date: 30 July 1993
Judge: Davide J and Feliciano J concurring
In this matter, the Supreme Court of the Republic of the Philippines granted a petition by a group of minors against the Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources to cancel all existing timber license agreements in the Philippines and to cease and desist from receiving, accepting, processing, renewing or approving new timber license agreements.
In holding for the petitioners, the Court held the following:
“While the right to a balanced and healthful ecology is to be found under the Declaration of Principles and State Policies and not under the Bill of Rights, it does not follow that it is less important than any of the civil and political rights enumerated in the latter. Such a right belongs to a different category of rights altogether for it concerns nothing less than self-preservation and self-perpetuation — aptly and fittingly stressed by the petitioners — the advancement of which may even be said to predate all governments and constitutions. As a matter of fact, these basic rights need not even be written in the Constitution for they are assumed to exist from the inception of humankind. If they are now explicitly mentioned in the fundamental charter, it is because of the well-founded fear of its framers that unless the rights to a balanced and healthful ecology and to health are mandated as state policies by the Constitution itself, thereby highlighting their continuing importance and imposing upon the state a solemn obligation to preserve the first and protect and advance the second, the day would not be too far when all else would be lost not only for the present generation, but also for those to come — generations which stand to inherit nothing but parched earth incapable of sustaining life.”