G.R. No. 101083 July 30 1993
FACTS:
Forty-four children, through their parents, sought to make the DENR Secretary stop issuing licenses to cut timber, invoking their right to a healthful environment (Secs. 16, 15 Article II, 1987 Constitution). The petitioners further asserted that they "represent their generation as well as generations yet unborn." They further claimed that the Secretary committed grave abuse of discretion in granting Timber License Agreements to cover more areas for logging than what is available.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the petitioners have a cause of action to file the case.
RULING:
Yes. the Court stated that even though the right to a balanced and healthful ecology is under the Declaration of Principles and State Policies of the Constitution and not under the Bill of Rights, it does not follow that it is less important than any of the rights enumerated in the latter: “[it] concerns nothing less than self-preservation and self-perpetuation, the advancement of which may even be said to predate all governments and constitutions”. The right is linked to the constitutional right to health, is “fundamental”, “constitutionalised”, “self-executing” and “judicially enforceable”. It imposes the correlative duty to refrain from impairing the environment.
The court stated that the petitioners were able to file a class suit both for others of their generation and for succeeding generations as “the minors' assertion of their right to a sound environment constitutes, at the same time, the performance of their obligation to ensure the protection of that right for the generations to come.”
