BIT – International College

College of Law
Tagbilaran City

A Reaction Paper
Pertaining to
Atty. Mario E. Maderazo’s Video Presentation
Entitled “The Rights of Nature in COVID-19”

As a Partial Fulfillment
To the Subject Requirement
In Natural Resources and Environmental Law
First Semester, S.Y. 2020-2021

Respectfully submitted to:

Judge Joy Angelica P. Santos-Doctor

Professor

Respectfully submitted by:

Alexis A. Ting
JD-4
Student
 In Paglaom Han Libong’s video presentation entitled “Rights of Nature in the Time of
COVID”, Atty. Mario E. Maderazo introduced the concept of granting legal personality to nature in
the same way that the law grants such personality to a corporation. This concept is not entirely new
as the Philippines is only beginning to catch up with other countries such as the United States of
America, Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia which have recently granted legal rights to nature. To
recognize that nature has legal rights, Atty. Maderazo elaborated that the Philippine socio-economic
system must be organized so that the ecosystem as the underlying unit of analysis can be given
importance.

As of writing, the environment has taken a toll as a consequence of man’s negligence and
several manmade disasters. This year, the COVID-19 pandemic raised environmental concerns
regarding the use and proper disposal of single-use personal protective equipment (PPE), face masks,
face shields, and used RT-PCR and rapid test kits. In September 2020, the skies of California and
Oregon, USA were hauntingly tinged with red and orange hues which could be described as eerily
apocalyptic due to the forest fires that ravaged thousands of acres of forest land. In December 2019,
the Australian bushfire ravaged an estimated 19 million hectares of forest trees which heightened
global warming concerns. In our domestic scene, the Philippine government, specifically the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), has received backlash for using
crushed dolomite rocks extracted from Alcoy, Cebu for the DENR’s Manila Bay beautification
project. Indeed, it seems that enacting a Rights of Nature law has never been more timely.

Atty. Maderazo mentioned that there are two (2) proposed bills in Congress on the rights of
nature. Senate Bill No. 1097, known as “Rights of Nature Act of 2019”, was introduced by Senator
Risa Hontiveros while its equivalent in the lower House, House Bill No. 5603, entitled “Rights of
Nature Act”, was principally sponsored by Representative Jose Christopher Y. Belmonte. Both bills
are still pending with their respective Committees on Natural Resources as of 02 October and 27
November 2019 respectively.

Upon reading both Senate Bill No. 1097 and House Bill No. 5603, it is clear that both bills
essentially contain the same provisions such as the (1) declaration of policy; (2) fundamental rights;
(3) obligations of the government; (4) legal personality of natural ecosystems, populations and
processes; (4) action for the protection or enforcement of the rights recognized herein; (5)
representation and standing; (6) reliefs; (7) creation of a trust fund; (8) creation and appointment of a
conservation committee; (9) introduction of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP);
(10) education; (11) prohibited acts; (12) penalties; and (13) appropriations, among others.

As discussed by Atty. Maderazo, the fundamental rights that will be granted to nature upon
the passage of the said bills are as follows: (1) the right to exist; (2) right to maintenance of the vital
cycles, functions, and processes that ensure their continued sustainability and well-being; (3) right to
the conditions necessary for their renewal and restoration; (4) right to adequate and effective
representation vis-à-vis the protection and enforcement of these rights.

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 Section 16, Article II of the 1987 Constitution expressly provides that “The State shall
protect and advance the right of the people to a balanced and healthful ecology in accord with the
rhythm and harmony of nature.” In Oposa vs. Factoran, the Court declared that “Section 15 (and
Section 16) of Article II of the Constitution are self-executing and judicially enforceable even in their
present form.”1 In the said case, the Court said that the right to a balanced and healthful ecology, a
right that does not even need to be stated in our Constitution as it is assumed to exist from the
inception of humankind, carries with it the correlative duty to refrain from impairing the
environment.2

In recent jurisprudence, the Supreme Court held that “the primary reason animal rights
advocates and environmentalists seek to give animals and inanimate objects standing is due to the
need to comply with the strict requirements in bringing a suit to court. Our own 1997 Rules of Court
requires that parties to a suit must either be natural or juridical persons, or entities authorized by law.
It further necessitates the action to be brought in the name of the real party-in-interest, even if filed
by a representative.3

As further elaborated in the Resident Marine Mammals v. Reyes case, the Court has recently
passed the landmark Rules of Procedure for Environmental Cases, which allows for a “citizen
suit,” and permits any Filipino citizen to file an action before our courts for violations of our
environmental laws on the doctrine that humans are stewards of nature.4 Thus, in the said case, the
need to give the Resident Marine Mammals legal standing has been eliminated by our Rules, which
allows any Filipino citizen, as a steward of nature, to bring a suit to enforce our environmental laws.
In the said case, the Stewards were joined as the real parties in the petition upon showing that there
may be possible violations of laws concerning the habitat of the Resident Marine Mammals. The
Stewards, Ramos and Eisma-Osorio, were thereby declared to possess the legal standing to file the
said petition.

The problem with not giving nature its own distinct set of legal rights is that this gives the
humans, as stewards of nature, the discretion to determine what they think is best for nature and to
act in a limited capacity only. A steward is defined as a person whose job it is to organize a particular
event, or to provide services to particular people, or to take care of a particular place.5

Several doctrines and principles related to environmental law are the precautionary principle,
the “hard look” doctrine, and the general welfare doctrine. The precautionary principle states that
when human activities may lead to threats of serious and irreversible damage to the environment that
is scientifically plausible but uncertain, actions shall be taken to avoid or diminish that threat.
Meanwhile, the “hard look” doctrine is a principle in administrative law that says a court should
carefully review an administrative agency decision to ensure that the agencies have genuinely engaged

1
Oposa v. Factoran, G.R. No. 101083, July 30, 1993
2
Ibid
3
Resident Marine Mammals of the Protected Seascape Tanon Strait, et. al. v. Secretary Angelo Reyes, et. al., G.R. No.
180771, April 21, 2015
4
Ibid.
5
https://www.google.com/amp/s/dictionary.cambridge.org/us/amp/english/steward

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in reasoned decision making.6 Lastly, the general welfare doctrine stems from Article XII (National
Economy and Patrimony) of our own 1987 Constitution.

In Section 1, Rule 7 of the Rules of Procedure for Environmental Cases, the writ of kalikasan is
introduced. It is defined as a remedy available to a natural or juridical person, entity authorized by
law, people’s organization, non-governmental organization, or any public interest group accredited by
or registered with any government agency, on behalf of persons whose constitutional right to a
balanced and healthful ecology is violated, or threatened with violation by an unlawful act or
omission of a public official or employee, or private individual or entity, involving environmental
damage of such magnitude as to prejudice the life, health or property of inhabitant in two or more
cities or provinces.

In the case of Paje v. Casino 7 , the Court stipulated that the validity of an Environmental
Compliance Certificate (ECC) can be challenged via a writ of kalikasan subject to certain qualifications.

As earlier noted, the writ of kalikasan is principally predicated on an actual or threatened

violation of the constitutional right to a balanced and healthful ecology, which involves
environmental damage of a magnitude that transcends political and territorial boundaries. A party,
therefore, who invokes the writ based on alleged defects or irregularities in the issuance of an ECC
must not only allege and prove such defects or irregularities, but must also provide a causal link or, at
least, a reasonable connection between the defects or irregularities in the issuance of an ECC and the
actual or threatened violation of the constitutional right to a balanced and healthful ecology of the
magnitude contemplated under the Rules.

On its face, it would seem that a petition for the issuance of a writ of kalikasan assailing the
validity of an ECC might not hold water in court due to the presumption of regularity of the DENR
in the performance of its duties, unless the DENR does act with grave abuse of discretion in issuing
such ECCs. The burden of proof required by the Rules also requires a more scientific approach to
establish proof that the acts assailed of truly pose an actual or perceived threat to the environment.

In Oposa vs. Factoran, the Court allowed the suit to be brought in the name of generations yet
unborn “based on the concept of intergenerational responsibility insofar as the right to a balanced
and healthful ecology is concerned.” Meanwhile in the Resident Marine Mammals case, the Court
declared that the Stewards possessed the legal standing to file the petition.

It is clear that in Philippine jurisprudence, nature has yet to be granted its own legal
personality akin to a corporation which has its own legal fiction under the law. A corporation is
defined as an artificial being created by operation of law, having the right of succession and the
powers, attributes, and properties expressly authorized by law or incidental to its existence.8 With
this, I strongly agree with Atty. Maderazo’s contention that it is quite unfortunate that nature has yet

6
https://definitions.uslegal.com/h/hard-look-doctrine
7
Paje v. Casino, G.R. No. 207257, February 3, 2015
8
Section 1, Revised Corporation Code of the Philippines

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to be granted legal standing in our courts. Indeed, it is disheartening to realize that some laws were
even enacted to legalize commercial activities which are presently posing a threat to the environment
and to the ecology.

Some laws which legalize potentially harmful activities to nature include, but are not limited
to: (1) Republic Act No. 9175 or The Chain Saw Act of 2002; (2) Republic Act No. 7942 or The
Philippine Mining Act of 1995; and (3) Republic Act No. 7076 or People’s Small-Scale Mining Act of 1991,
among others. It is indisputable that there is a conflict of interests between rights of nature and
human rights. Between the two rights mentioned, it is unsurprising that the latter would surely take
precedence in the hierarchy of rights as there is no such thing as a perfect balance in the grand scale
of things.

In Abraham Maslow’s paper entitled A Theory of Human Motivation published in 1943, he

introduced the so-called “hierarchy of needs” which is often presented as a five-level pyramid, with
higher needs coming into focus only once lower, more basic needs have been met.9 At the bottom of
such hierarchy are the physical needs such as the need for air, water, food, rest and health. Man, as an
evolved primate, must satisfy these basic needs through the use, exploration, and exploitation of the
environment and its natural resources for his own benefit.

On the other hand, the concept of Rights of Nature law has only been recently introduced in
the global legal system which is thought by many as such a novel concept even though Mother Earth
has been in existence since day two of creation 10 or at least 4.6 billion years old if based from
radiological dating of meteorites and homogenous terrestrial deposits of lead.11 Still, wherever one’s
beliefs lie, be it based on religion or science, one cannot deny the fact that nature predates man’s
existence and will presumably exist even after most generations will have died.

As human population continues to multiply so the need to exploit nature intensifies. If only
nature could tell tales of how it was able to witness the Jurassic period when mighty dinosaurs used
to roam the earth; or how smaller and weaker tribes were colonized by stronger and more civilized
colonizers; or how so much blood was shed during the two World Wars, specifically in Stalingrad
during World War II, which still holds the title as one of the largest, longest and bloodiest
engagements in modern warfare where nearly two million people were killed or injured in the
fighting12; or how nature must have suffered terribly during the twin bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, Japan in August 194513 or in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in April 198614,
then humans might realize that there is a kind of permanence to nature and that nature will always
find ways to regenerate itself – through its own natural or violent means. Lately, the world has been

9
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/our-hierarchy-needs%3famp
10
Genesis 01:06-08, Holy Bible: “And God said, ‘Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from
water.’ So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God
called the vault ‘sky’. And there was evening, and there was morning – the second day.”
11
https://www.aaas.org/biology-and-age-earth#:-
:text=With%20the%20expanded%20time%20horizon,about%204.6%20billion%20years%20old.
12
https://www.history.com/.amp/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-stalingrad
13
https://history.com/.amp/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki
14
https://history.com/.amp/topics/1980s/chernobyl

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experiencing more drought, storms, tsunamis, earthquakes, and other natural disaster by which
Nature manifests itself. Clearly, the rate of exploitation of humans outpaces the pace of Nature to
regenerate itself on its own, leading to such cataclysmic events. To mitigate and entirely avoid such
horrific events in the future, the rights of nature and human rights must meet halfway to address
these issues that could ideally lead to acceptable levels of use, conservation, and regeneration. Thus,
when a small town in the United States named Tamaqua Borough in Pennsylvania became the first
place in the world to recognize the rights of nature in 200615, other territories saw the light, took
notice and followed suit.

Some countries that have already recognized rights of nature to a certain extent and their
notable achievements are as follows: (1) Ecuador, which became the first country in the world to
recognize the Rights of Nature in its national constitution; (2) Bolivia, which held the World People’s
Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, where the Universal Declaration on the Rights of
Mother Earth was issued; (3) the United States of America, which is possibly the country with the
most number of rights of nature laws passed particularly in the states of Pittsburgh, Colorado, Ohio,
Oklahoma, New Hampshire and the tribal nation of the Ho-Chunk Nation; (4) Nepal, wherein
Members of its Parliament are actively considering a Rights of Nature constitutional amendment; (5)
New Zealand, which passed the Te Urewera Act that recognizes the Te Urewera, a former national
park, as having “legal recognition in its own right”; (6) Sweden, whereby the Rights of Nature might
be incorporated into Swedish law; (7) Colombia, whose Constitutional Court ruled in 2016 that the
Rio Atrato possesses rights to “protection, conservation, maintenance, and restoration,” and
established joint guardianship for the river shared by the indigenous people and the national
government and in 2018, the Colombian Supreme Court recognized the Colombian Amazon as a
“subject of rights”; (8) Mexico City, which incorporated into the city constitution the need for a law
to “recognize and regulate the broader protection of the rights of nature formed by all its ecosystems
and species as a collective entity subject to rights”; (9) India, whose High Court of Uttarakhand ruled
that Ganga and Yamuna Rivers, glaciers, and other ecosystems are legal persons with certain rights;
(10) Brazil, whose Municipality of Bonito in the State of Pernambuco enacted a rights of nature law;
(11) Uganda, which enacted the National Environmental Law of 2019; (12) Bangladesh, whose High
Court recognized legal rights of rivers in 2019; and (13) Philippines, wherein two bills were
introduced in Congress to recognize the Rights of Nature.16

Notably, the Philippines may become the first Southeast Asian country to enact the Rights
of Nature law and second in Asia, next to Nepal. It is quite puzzling given that both countries belong
to the Lower-Middle Income Economies tier according to the classification made by the World
Bank. 17 Neighboring countries and regions belonging to High-Income Economies such as Hong
Kong, Japan, Korea, Macao, Singapore, and Taiwan18 have yet to propose or incorporate such rights
of nature into their domestic laws. The absence or delay of a proposal to enact such rights of nature
law in these highly-developed countries could be attributed in part to the most practiced religions in

15
https://celdf.org/advancing-community-rights/rights-of-nature/rights-nature-
timeline/#:~:text=Tamaqua%20is%20the20very%20first,Nature%20in%20its%20national%20constitution.
16
Supra
17
https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups
18
Ibid

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these regions such as Buddhism, Taoism, and Shinto. Such religions place great emphasis in “being
one with nature” so that incorporating such rights of nature into their domestic laws would seem
redundant.

According to Buddhist teachings, the innermost subtle consciousness is the sole sort of
creator, itself consisting of the five (5) elements of earth, wind, fire, water, and vacuum. The
Buddhists believe that there is a very close interdependence or interrelationship between the
environment and its inhabitants.19 Meanwhile, the Taoists suggest that since human life is really only
a small part of a larger process of nature, the human life which makes sense are those in harmony
with nature.20 Lastly, Shinto, the original religion of Japan, worships the forces of nature and tends to
make harmonious relations between human beings, nature, and kami (“god” or “spirit”).21

In contrast, the Philippines and Nepal are mainly a nation of Roman Catholics and Hindus
respectively. Such religions place less emphasis on the commune with nature and give more
significance to following the teachings of their God. Hinduism, the world’s oldest religion, mainly
encourages its followers to achieve dharma, which is a code of living that emphasizes good conduct
and morality. While Hindus revere all living creatures and consider the cow as a sacred animal22, the
religion is more focused on upholding animal rights. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic Church
primarily teaches about God’s objective existence, the divinity of Jesus, and the existence of Heaven
and Hell, among others. This is not to say that Hindus and Roman Catholics are lesser attuned with
nature than their Asian counterparts. However, we cannot discount the fact that religion, together
with education, is one important factor in shaping the mindset, outlook and best practices of a
nation. In the Philippines, the constitutional mandate of separation of church and state shall be
inviolable. 23 Compounded with the current environmental problems that the world is collectively
facing, it is encouraging to know that, finally, our legislators have recognized the urgent and salient
need to enact the Rights of Nature bills into a law.

19
https://www.dalailama.com/messages/environment/buddhist-concept-of-nature
20
https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d74d7a45444f34457a6333566d54/index.html#:~:text=%22The%20Dao%2C%20or
%20the%20Way,are%20in%20harmony%20with%20nature.
21
https://www.japan-experience.com/to-know/understanding-japan/shinto
22
https://www.history.com/.amp/topics/religion/hinduism
23
Sec. 06, Article II of the 1987 Constitution

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