The CJ Davide decision on environmental protection

The DPWH and DENR officials who made it possible for greedy contractors to perpetrate a scam of ghost and substandard flood control projects, as well as the senators and congressmen, budget officials and LGU executives to connive and plunder the nation of trillions in peoples' money and allowed the ravage of our environment should all be ashamed of themselves. Mahiya naman sila.

- Atty. Josephus B. Jimenez

In the landmark Supreme Court Decision penned by Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., in the case of Juan Antonio Oposa et al v. DENR Sec. Fulgencio Factoran Jr. et al, GR no 101083, the Supreme Court En Banc gave us all, contractors and corrupt officials included, a magnum opus lecture on the need to care for our environment. If they are convicted of the crimes that are about to be filed by the Ombudsman, one of the penalties is for all of them to read 100 times every day this landmark Davide ponencia.

Davide wrote: "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 constitution.