good morning everyone okay so let's begin our session one for the environmental teachers online training program today this training program is developed by the legal education board in partnership with the asian development bank our adb and international union for conservation of nature iucn academy of environmental law and the un environmental program i am attorney maria romina bigumal program coordinator of the legal education board and i will be your host today the topic for today's session is state of environmental law in the philippines its evolution challenges prospects and opportunities before we get started i'd like to go over our house rules please let us know if we could record this session today we will only start recording if all parties consent to the recording mute your microphone while waiting for others to join and when not speaking during the session you may also you use the chat box option if you have any questions or comment you can click the reaction option to interact with our speakers and guests lastly kindly turn off your video camera after the picture was taken to lessen the amount of bandwidth for everyone in the middle we would also like to remind everyone that the links to the registration form as well as the evaluation form will be sent in the chat box kindly check your chat box and fill out the registration form to confirm your attendance the evaluation form will also be sent to your email after today's session and you may fill it out as part of your attendance we remind everyone that the issuance of a training certificate requires your attendance to at least 9 of the 12 sessions for today's session we will also be having our breakout room session for the breakout room sessions instruction enter the room where you are assigned by taking the join at the breakout room function and select your assigned room the breakout room function is located at the right portion of your screen next to participant and child chat functions for your room assignment please refer to the list of breakout room groups we sent to you earlier in the notice reminder last monday you may we will also be sending the list in the chat box and you may also refer to it before the session begin before you enter the breakout room kindly wait for other participants to join as soon as the group is complete you may now select a reporter and a note taker who will present the summary of issues discussed by the group a report template will also be provided to everyone in the chat box please click your chat please check your chat box for the link the selected reporter and note taker shall also use the template to record the discussion of the group this template will be sent to an email address which will also be sent in the chat box the purpose of the breakout room is to encourage an interactive and substantive discussion between the participants on the issues they encountered within their respective locality as part of our topic sessions today at the end of the 30-minute period the small breakout room will automatically close the host will monitor the time and will give a reminder 10 minutes before the breakout room closes after the small breakout room participants will then converge in the main room for the where the moderator will assist us as we share are your group's discussion we invite we invite everyone to answer a short call which we will be flashing in the screen as part of our ser as part of our survey for the topics in our breakout room session kindly click the the poll function located next to the participant and chat box function on your screen hi mary can i also just say um to all our participants here so this is part of the idea of how we teach and uh options for teaching and so the breakout rooms is one option to promote student engagement and so that um that that breakout room function uh will be is a function button that will be enabled uh after the presentation um that's going to come from my guest lecturer and then you'll be able to be assigned to those rooms or join the breakout room so it won't be enabled yet um it'll be enabled in about 30 to 40 minutes when we're about to move into the breakout room sessions um so what i'm asking you at the moment in terms of if you could just click um on the poll um to show or to indicate what you think um are the uh the top three um environmental issues um in the philippines um and it could be in your particular area or the whole of the philippines you can just answer the top three so you've got a multiple choice and so just pick the top um three questions um that you think are the most important for you in in the philippines thank you very much thank you matthew all right we will just wait for another minute before we end the paw thanks mary okay so i guess um everyone has answered the pulse survey is that correct and hello yes 70 of 70. we can close it now okay thank you so much matthew and angelo now for the documentation purposes of this training session we would like to request everyone to turn on their video camera for a quick picture okay we encourage everyone to put up a smile to welcome this morning's um training program okay our adb colleagues will be taking the picture um hello hold on i'll all right on three one two and three hold on please let me just check quickly all right one more the next slide right one two and three all right that's everybody thank you very much okay i'm having technical difficulties kindly wait for a few seconds okay to formally start the program i would like to introduce to you our resource speaker for today we have with us a tiny grass risalda mayo and attorney mayor anda is an environmental attorney with over 30 years of field-based practice in environmental advocacy and community-based resource management work in the philippines she established the environmental legal assistance centers or elac in 1990 and now one of the philippines most active ngos working to empower communities and local stakeholders to protect their natural resources she is currently its head executive director known as journey to family colleagues and friends attorney mayo and has more than two decades of programmatic and managerial experience in various areas of non-profit work including policy development and advocacy for conservation and natural resources management she also has experience for community development and human rights fundraising for non-profit environmental work project cycle management monitoring and evolution she also actively participated in partnership building with local governments and private sectors on concerns such as climate change coastal resource management clean air management and legislation protected area establishment and management and community organizing work for natural resources management she has received several awards and commendation for her environmental work including one of the conde nast travelers magazine in july 2000 which elected her from a list of global candidates in recognition of her work with the palawan indigenous communities and the establishment of ela the puerto princesa city mayor's award for valuable valuable contribution to sustainable development and environmental protection was also awarded to her on 1998 and grant fellowship awardee united states asia development fellowship usa program in 1994. she also received the western command 2004 by a neon award for engagement with government and communities on environmental education and on february 20 2018 she also was commended the historian of pakasa of vice president robredo she is a lecturer a resource person on speed of seminars and trainings organized by the philippine judicial academy or field trial she is also a resource speaker for alternative law groups or alg and government agencies such as bnr da befar and local government units on environmental laws new rules on prosecution of environmental cases coastal develop coastal law enforcement climate change environmental governance he is an author and co-author of various articles and publication and environmental policy environmental governance mining red plus and corruption risk she is a professor of natural resources environmentalists since the year 1996 and legal ethics from 1995 to 2020 and land titled indeed planned titles in the palawan state university college of law she finished her law degree laude in 1985 at the san jose direct recoleto cebu city and an undergraduate degree in accounting laude from the saint peace college cebu ladies and gentlemen please welcome attorney griselda mario and good morning everyone mabuhay from palawan thank you romina for such kind introduction it's great to see a lot of practitioners here professors and also judges i've seen judges so just allow me to okay i hope we can see the screen now can you see it romina okay so i'll put it um in yes there yes that's it we can see it thank you so it's a privilege it's an honor um to be with you today even for 30 minutes so just quickly my task is actually to share with you uh the evolution of the environmental law um it's an interesting journey the challenges the prospects and opportunities and then quickly i if you look at environmental law environmental lowering in the philippines you cannot help but look at legislation so quickly i it's good to review what has happened and i categorized it to several years the first is prior to 1970s because we do not have much time okay and then the 80s the 90s and until now so prior to the 1970s we know that uh the colonial inspired galleon doctrine which is state ownership of natural resources was a convenient mechanism to actually colonize okay and utilize our natural resources that was actually um until now the indigenous peoples still grappled with that although we have the indigenous people's rights act and the focus then was basically resource use and exploitation so the approach was centralized um and regulatory particularly for forestry and fisheries management um we did have actually old laws then like uh we have the engine law of 1901 which many people now look at look at it as environmentally regressive and then we have a forestry act a force act of 1907 and also officials act of 1932 plus we did have a 1916 protection uh law on game and and fish and that was also amended by ra 3915 and this you can all read i included references at the end of my talk so it was not strictly environmental law in the sense that you take a look hardly on science the impact on the people issues of pollution issues of climate were not there so the environmental perspective was not written in these laws but we were influenced fortunately in the 1960s with environmental rights advocates because of racial cars and science spring book so it's a good book to that talked about the impact of pesticides in the 1970s we were fortunate to have the stockholm declaration of 1972. i'm stressed i'm stressing this because it was an international document which recognized the right to a healthy environment and right now when we talk about environmental law this has to be inextricably linked to human rights we did have none by the international sources and we are signatories to the u.n conventions and these are important because they provide strong foundation for the philippines to include environmental rights within human rights protection in the 70s that was a martial era but we know that we had besides pd 705 the revised first record we also had the philippine environmental policy which is philip the pd 1151 and also the philippine environmental code it was an attempt to actually integrate all aspects of the environment and there were administered administering authorities which were included in this laws and then two decades of martial law those were very challenging years the decision-making was generally top down um it was basically a regulatory approach as well in many laws but it was good to see that by that time there were already civil society formations like haribon although they were focusing more on animals at the time okay and then in the late 80s it's good to highlight critical policy and civil society developments in environmental governance because you cannot actually set this aside when we recall the efforts towards achieving democratization and it's good to highlight here actually in the late 70s up to the 80s the institutionalization of community-based natural resource management policies in the forest and fisheries sectors so government slowly recognized the importance of people participating in protection and also enforcement so there were already participatory environmental protection policies and sustainable resource management technologies and why are these important because we know that environmental law cannot swim alone as a regulatory framework you really need people to understand and participate in protecting our environment we participated as well in the world environment movement there are many of this and we started to also well not started but we continued the engagement in developing policy and there are lawyers here who are who participated in that process okay in the late 80s we know following the people's power revolution in 1986 that resulted eventually in the crafting of a new constitution a very progressive constitution where environmental rights were shaped as state policies while they do not form part of the bill of rights i think injuries prudence that has been highlighted that the article 2 section 16 is construed as the mother of all rights is the flagship provision for environmental rights and that is complemented by the right to health so um in the right to life under article 3 it's not just simply the right to live but the right to a good life and what is a good life you know health not only mental well-being but also being able to work study to build the family and many others from the 1990s okay to the present we are fortunate that we slowly shaped the internal the institutional framework for environmental governance democratization and evolution and we can see that in the major pieces of legislation like the local government code fisheries code the national integrated protected area system the indigenous people's rights act and it was also during this period that we had the rio declaration of 1992 with 27 principles which included the precautionary principle and the philippine agenda 21. so we were actually one of the first few countries to develop a local agenda and we had a social reform agenda which was pushed by the ramos administration now it's also important to highlight the from the 1990s to the present that we had already a lot of groups be informed know whether it was for community based resource management for uh for building forest wardens starting to organize women being involved in fisheries indigenous peoples and many others it's important to highlight the opposite case in 1993 because here it recognized in domestic law the rights of future generations intergenerational equity my friends is a concept embodied in principle three of the 1992 rio declaration so the opposite case as well declared that it is a duty by every individual to protect the environment in 1994 there was also a case of the laguna lake development authority where the right to health was also recognized as a fundamental right okay still to continue there were so many laws passed from 1990s and up to the millennium and there are many of them which already are familiar with the challenge is really giving life to this laws implementing this laws so you can see that in the screen i'd like to also highlight some cases example dahinaris case while it was not a a positive decision basically on the ltfrb's duty but the high court recognized the right to breathe clean air and you're also familiar of the social justice case where an ordinance um was compelled to be enforced because it was an ordinance to reclassify portions of pandakan and santa ana land from industrial to commercial use which would eventually lead to the um the removal of the of shell and you know all these uh fossil fuel companies their their um their their offices there okay their plants so um it's important to highlight that that eventually the supreme court when these cases were filed were also responding to the call of the ira now enforcement of environmental rights as you know right now are uh consists of various institutions example in palawan we have the strategic environmental plan for palawan so we do have a prolonged concept of sustainable development but the superpower agency under e0192 as you know and also the administrative code is the department of environment and natural resources the llda is a special mandate and when we talk about the actually this is the pub in the dnr was a judicial body to hear pollution cases plus the protected area management boards and the ltfrb they do have special mandates but they all contribute to addressing problems in the environment now the palm beach has also a limit because they they only deal with um problems within the protected area whether it's mount kitanglad or the tubataha reefs or the etc it's also important to stress that in the law in our laws the state has the power to grant licenses consistent with the regalian doctrine and this has been emphasized in the case of ismail versus deputy executive secretary and therefore even corporations who violate this laws are supposed to be accountable and the state can also issue restraining orders and injunctions but we know the limits and the powers of the of the high court here it's also important to stress that under our laws corporations can be held liable i mean the heads or officers of corporations can be criminally uh liable for negligence in their operation so there are many other cases on that um it's also important to stress on local government units the case of actually the province of rizal when we talk about the sanitary landfill there the case that the court recognized the local government units power to protect the environment and so in the case of tano in palawan with the passage of the life is ban ordinance in in a sense besides the dnr you have the local government units playing a critical role in shaping environmental governance and environmental enforcement now this case i'd like to share many other cases because um here there is an attempt okay by fishers and two lawyers who were stewards of the marine mammals to protect a protect italian state or foreign on behalf of the resident marine mammals so this was a special civil action the rules of procedure did not exist then but they were concerned about a service contract to explore develop and exploit petroleum resources in ira and around the timing straight so there was seismic survey and oil drilling now the service contract um was an issue but the question was did do marine mammals have standing to sue okay but then the court said that need not be squarely answered okay because the lawyers here in the fishers were stewards of this marine mammals and the high court was very legal here because they said that the service contract failed to comply with the safeguards in article 12 of the 1987 constitution so it was not signed by the president it was not authorized by general law and not reported to congress and the court also underscored the violation of the eia system because there was no ecc and the nypas law was violated okay kastanyan strait was a protected area i'd like to highlight good practices and lawyers here have been part of this many of our environmental lawyers contribute to localized efforts towards multi-sector enforcement efforts and environmental law is significant there we have also contributed to crafting local legislation they establish watersheds and even protected areas research is an integral part of environmental law because jurisprudence is involving and then monitoring because we have to also determine whether our laws are really being implemented well there's a combination of strategies like public interest environmental litigation when you sue doe and dnr on why coal plants are still being allowed in this country or while fishery regulations are not being implemented or why mining is being given a lot of incentives but litigation cannot swim alone you have to complement that with advocacy and awareness raising strategies and that's being done in this country we're also fortunate to have seen committee actions in the kaliba dhan project that seen baguio the lawyers from baguio can tell stories the use of social media and of course incentives resource-based community livelihood and i've seen this everywhere in the country where environmental lawyers working with civil society groups enterprise development groups have pushed for community livelihoods okay the challenge is i do not have much time um institutional issues and concerns this is really very apparent on forestry it used to be one forester take you know protecting ten thousand hectares right now it's four thousand but we have seen foresters here everywhere in the country in palawan four para enforcers have died have been killed it's not easy to manage even one hectare or ten hectares of forest so you the government has tried to complement that with community-based forest management agreement schemes limited budget enforcement is a cost center and so is and so is research and monitoring but you could you do not see that being debated upon in congress now legal instruments have also been used for illegal activities and of course the ugly head of corruption so pd 705 is among the most antiquated laws we have the national land use management law and the sustainable first management bill pending in congress for more than 10 years now it's time to actually amend this laws okay other other on the enforcement side for those who litigate like i've seen this modestly aside in the criminal cases so if the enforcers are not familiar with the provisions of the law then they do errors no in the complaints in affidavits and then we've also seen the rules and arrests not been complied so we have seen uh enforcers being sued okay um this you already know and weak evidence very very important um in the past when cases um they are get you know they actually take 10 years i had a case of 10 years and witnesses dying so then eventually it's archived so this is really sad and therefore the violator continues to commit the crime now issue on jurisdiction i i think uh that has been settled by dorsal procedure but there are administrative remedies also with judiciable md so for a while the dnr was actually asking on whether they can continue with the administrative adjudication case on forestry before a criminal case is filed but those cases actually can proceed together harassment suits are also a plenty and i i'm glad to tell you modesty aside that our our batting average on slap is one hundred percent like example a barranga captain was sued six cases by a mining company we all got that dismissed including farmers uh who have been sued with libelle okay but we have a challenge now a mayor has been harassed and suspended because of a complaint of a mining company here in palawa and for media people lawyers okay libel is there plus of course the killings of lawyers which uh in the global witness report the philippines is a dangerous area for environmental defenders and humanizer failures so we go to safety and integrity which is also a challenge so of course we know uh i've also suffered from red tagging and also other environmental laws but we've dialogued with the military there so this is an important challenge okay i have not not much time the delays i've said that already um and then the witnesses i'd like to highlight here expert witnesses because um not all scientists are willing to testify we recruit interns to become environmental lawyers witnesses are also difficult to encourage to become witnesses so it's it's um worrisome if you have the same witness and he is harassed or she or he is so that is an important area of work okay chain of custody we've had cases dismissed because the enforcers were not able to ensure the chain of custody and documentation and authentication as well okay lack of lawyers is a continuing problem now when you go to the farthest area of shadow madre or mindanao they even call us to say that they need lawyers there now prospects i am sharing these concepts because i've seen this in 30 years of work that there's a debate whether you have to be a anthropocentric which is human-centered and which unfortunately has been the ethic of utilitarian tradition so we have destroyed resources because of that or biocentric uh you're nature centered you don't want human beings to destroy the environment but sustainability is an important concept so how do you strike the balance and i've seen through the years that we've pushed for good environmental governance where environmental law is very significant and then you've seen as well and the supreme court is pushing for this under the rules of procedure for environmental cases with the concept of environmental justice where justice puno and justice corona was saying it's a combination of social justice and environmental protection and then climate justice where the case is now holding exacting accountability from corporations who are main contributors of greenhouse gases in in the world and the rights of nature okay um that is also i think ecuador led that and our advocates pushing for that now so the prospects public interest litigation we still need to build on that we need to have more cases that would build on jurisprudence environmental liability and also giving life and value to the rules of procedure for environmental cases corporate climate human rights litigation actions can be considered you can take a look into fossil fuel projects just around where i work in palawan there's so many service contacts there one service contract is just adjacent to the battalion's national park is that possible is it possible to uncover the historical responsibility of fossil fuel corporations for human rights violations so these are some of the questions second you we need to strengthen enforcement and to do that environmental lawyers like us should participate in capacity building national and local and then we have to use science total economic valuation training of course that's there and then monitoring because they need scientific and economic and technical support there okay research and monitoring of cases should continue but in the local level there are many of us trying to do our small share in crafting environmental codes in formulating a sustainable development agenda in localizing sustainable development goals so there are many opportunities another area is environmental clinics sorry for the type of error and internships so many of us are doing that establishing clinics in law schools and hopefully we can have the third second third or fourth generation of environmental lawyers someday we also need to promote research and learning in the field of environmental law in our in our schools and in our communities how do we make sure that our governance systems respond to the needs of our ecosystems why do we push for bill bill build in areas which are reaching biodiversity like dumaguete reclamation okay um how do we respond to the dolomite okay issue in manila bay so there are many um there are many questions as we proceed now advocacy um 50 of my time is also in this area of work and i have seen that we can push for policy reform but we can also compel uh government agencies to do their work to do their job not only through litigation but also to advocacy work whether you want to alter power relations in the community indigenous peoples versus corporate plantations or mining companies or changing attitudes it's very difficult because just giving brother impact to a policy program may take ages but it can be done and it has been done so opportunities there's the sustainable development goals by the united nations but on the local level i'd like to highlight the rules of procedure before i end so you know that this is a perspective of the supreme court and the objective is not just to advance our constitutional right to a balanced and healthful ecology but to address issues on cost speed okay and simplicity and it attempted to be innovative and to promote best practices plus enabling court to monitor this so these are the highlights of the rules okay i know that you have read this and are familiar with this so i'd like to highlight there are many slides from experience the apple on the local level uh can actually bear fruit you know when you push for example protecting a mangrove area or protecting farmlands or your forest against mining okay so the aipo is both prohibitive and mandatory and and that's good and you can use that for the root of kalikasa that tempo is challenging because it's only 72 hours there are courts who would say that it could no longer be extended even if there was no hearing within 72 hours but there's also there are also courts who have extended it for a year so we know to me it's a conundrum there's a gap there and we need to have cases to somehow either improve jurisprudence or amend the rules the writ of kalikasan the challenge there is two cities or two provinces and you have to establish magnitude so there have been cases which have been dismissed um because the magnitude has not been established mandamus okay the rate of kalikasan and rita ponting mandamus uh i have seen that the privilege of the wreath was the only privilege of the wreath was awarded in the greenpeace case okay on the beat it alone but it was also reversed completely because the case has been mode and academic so mandamus this is interesting because we need um you need to be directly aggrieved here and it's directly it's directed towards an agency of government citizen suit the court has liberalized standing so that gives you the opportunity there how do you make sure that the opposite case is pushed further you know you take an extra mile so that ordinary citizens can assert the rights um it's pd there is a constant degree there okay this needs to be developed i haven't seen this yet in practice um okay even the speed the earliest i've seen in in my work is two years it's not one year ten months is even short okay and then the precautionary principle this is something that we need to still build on it's just the greenpeace case because the mosque the case on the the ban on the aerial spray was not favorably uh acted upon by the high court because absolute certainty also requires that there was science no there was scientific research so that's the difference between the those cases slap is very favorable for us because we will all be sued libel is a very common uh it's a very common slap lawyers media advocates and then i'd like to share before i end because it's almost i think 30 minutes that when we reviewed about 12 cases before the rpec and after we are good to note that the standing pursuit is still liberalized so the court has continued to recognize that even if there have been attempts by the respondents in these cases to dismiss it because of standing to suit so citizens and stewards and then the constitutional provisions on article 2 section 16 uh no exploitation protected areas okay approval of service contracts and then upholding the provisions of the local government code on prior consultations the boracay foundation case is important to highlight and then the application of precautionary principle okay in the greenpeace case but i would say because it was dismissed while the precautionary principle is still there we need to you know find new cases to make sure that the principle is still upheld okay and we need to expand it and then converting the apple into a little containment damus that we've seen in the cases that we've reviewed plus sustaining the mandates of government agencies so example in the case involving the the road sharing okay um and against the climate change commission the the court was saying that the dnr was doing its role even in the case that we filed which is still pending in the supreme court on coal we won against the department of energy but the dnr's mandate was still upheld okay that they were still implementing the work so the challenges i think because environmental law is more than 90 science we need to work with scientists and we need to make sure that evidence is there okay and then we need to enlighten the courts we need to enlighten ourselves about the scientific aspects example when you want to establish that natural forest which is about to be mined it's rich in biodiversity it's not just simply indigenous people saying that you need research so we got a scientist to do a high conservation value assessment plus a total economic valuation to make sure that we can show that the value of the forest and environmental goods and services far outweigh the value of the minerals now exhaustion of administrative remedies you know the hierarchy of laws these are things that the the well the solicitor general and other uh respondent agencies always highlight so that's a challenge um so far we haven't we haven't been dismissed yet no on on that ground and then the requisites because in the case of uh the energy case the cold case of agam uh in subic bay the court was saying that you have to make sure that the requisites are in place and then fbic because in that same case uh the free empire informed consent need not be in place yet when you push for eia so to me that's a challenge because you need to assert the indigenous peoples rights act so some insights i think in closing i would want to encourage environmental lawyers professors to contribute to monitoring these cases so that we can see if the jurisprudence uh is there we need to give life to those procedures of environmental cases um and also do our work educative work that's why the cases are not that many many affected communities are still not able to avail these remedies they do not know what rules of procedure for environmental cases are all about so access to justice is a real issue so in closing my friends thank you for listening i encourage that we continue to teach we continue to inspire students we continue to participate in advocacy work in public interest litigation in crafting local policies because that is part of efforts in giving life to the law after all it's practice or experience which strengthens environmental law thank you very much mabuhay thank you so much for that very substantive discussion attorney griselda mayo and all right so now for the question and answer to our participants if you have any questions you may click with the race handbag hand button in the reaction function located in the right side of your screen you may also send your questions in the chat box and we will just read it for you so anyone would like to ask or clarify any part of the discussion of attorney anders lecture okay so i found this one comment from attorney maria concepcion hernandez veloso she commented that we don't have sc cases sample or jurisprudence for slap cases and she hoped that we can gain access to lower level court decisions house them in a database for academic use yes that's an excellent observation and that's correct um many of the slap cases have been dismissed attorney belosso in the level of the prosecutor okay uh in the court and i think that's a good project we we take a look how the courts decided on it one case um we've uh submitted position papers okay in six cases but there is one case now involving uh mayor mayor jean feliciano who was sued by epila nicole and she was suspended for a year so that is still ongoing uh there's a motion for a consideration and we will see how it goes so it's still in the ombudsman but uh we're noting that now thank you maria concepcion okay we have another question here attorney from attorney teen hitai what's your suggestion for legislation to get effective remedies okay we it's not just simply legislation uh yeah but for legislation i think it should include budgets you know if it's a local ordinance there must be a budget for enforcement because that you do not see because enforcement is a call center and if let's say you you pass an environmental code or an amended fisheries code in the local level or a protected area okay but uh if that ordinance just provide for fines and penalties but there's no regular allocation for a budget i i think how can law you know low laws are only as good as their implementation so you have to make sure that there are funds to implement it um so therefore you need warm bodies there of course while i say that there are pending bills in congress now to amend the forestry code the public land act which is 1936 and also the mining law but it's it's taking ages to do that so we to me a faster route would be local local legislation example if you have an environmental code like in south cotabato where up to now they they have the ordinance provides for banning open pit mining so of course there's an attempt to change that now but that provision is still there and that's why they're able to protect their forests their ancestral domains their key biodiversity areas because of that tradition so that to me in conclusion you have to complement legislation with um you know to me hard enforcement budget for that with the mandana's ruling i think there will be more funds now for local government units so hopefully we can get involved in shaping in shaping environmental governance yes okay the climate change commission can i respond to that yes um with all due respect to the ccc um the law was amended by the people survival fund but there is there is a uh strategy and a plan but i do not see funding to implement it up to the level of the local government unit so the projects are there for education but again with all due respect it's so limited it's so limited they could not respond to example how do they contribute to the energy plan the philippine energy plan is it consistent with our nationally determined contributions because we are signatory to the paris agreement okay so perhaps that can be a subject of climate litigation um and then i'd like to respond to valiant conception uh romina if i may that's an excellent it's an excellent question about election time uh yesterday we had a long meeting because they wanted environmental lawyers to participate now what's the sustainable development agenda what's the environmental agenda so perhaps or climate justice agenda i think we can contribute there what are things we can recommend okay to them but doing that means knowing or having a good sense of the problems on the ground because we can only recommend right if we know what's happening in your area so we can we should participate and then the rights of nature yes uh can forests actually sue you know uh you know can forests speak for themselves can a pangolin whose habitat is being converted to corporate plantations or uh fish which is officially area which is being overfished can they actually have standing to soup so at the moment in the marine mammals case which is the closest the court said that the petitioners were stewards and they represented the marine mammals as stewards so that's the closest uh i think we need to we need to develop that area based on our experience uh tony mackie is here no he's part of that group and there's a pending bill i know in congress supported as well by uh the mysterious group okay about the trend of kalikasan thank you um it's not again with all your respect to the high court uh the reach of kalikasan many have been dismissed in the case example of arrigo in palawan against against the uss guardian that was dismissed as well as in the case of the subic bay coal plant the requisites are not there that's what the high court said and the cases are still pending but i think it's cause for concern why this are not uh positively acted upon the only privileges i've seen was the green peace case now there was also an agram case actually on mining yidrit of kalikasan only those two cases but we know that um the merits okay of these cases need to really be ironed out on the local level so thank you lisa for that it's not a good trend so therefore there's a lot of work to do from from our end thank you so we also have another question here um attorney griselda or attorney grady from attorney aries matiba should we push for codification of environmental laws and repeal those outdated laws such as ny code yes yeah thank you aries um attorney ariz matiba i believe so uh if we can already well the national land use management act is an attempt no but our environmental code pd 1152 is also antiquated okay so you need to craft a new one but because the local government code also gives a lot of mandates and powers to the lg use perhaps you can craft local environmental codes just like what we did in puerto princesa okay in many areas like misamis south cotabato so it can be done localizing it because uh local government units can shape their own destiny their own faith just like banning mining in their area so to me that can be relatively manageable because we're there we're teaching in those schools and we can work with advocates in the local level of course the congressional area of work is still important but it takes time it takes time okay so uh we have also matthew who's been raising his hand matthew would you like to ask attorney gertie some questions thank you i'm i'm i know i'm an organizer but i'm always excited about philippine environmental law um and there are some really interesting questions so i i wanted just to ask you you mentioned uh in terms of local government officials and and you know this uh mayors and others of other guys who have been uh targeted by slap suits or or um cases um this is something that i think is uh is quite sort of shocking from an idea that um state officials or officials seeking to enforce laws would be um legally uh attacked by um you know anyone um is there a way that uh these these officials can be protected um you know certainly you know defendants and respondents have the right um to be heard in court um but this seems to be going beyond uh exercising those rights and being very aggressive you know it's something i think that is happening more and more um but certainly in the case of um officials in bangais those who are mandated to actually comply the law being targeted because they're taking action or taking action in accordance with with them their mandates i'm just curious if there's a legal provision or is it something that requires a legislative amendment thank you well actually the presumption of regularity is a doctrine which has also been invoked by officials being sued for failure to implement laws i've seen that also in you know in our mining cases but for officials who um implement and enforce the law matthew first thank you for the question they do they invoke the slap and that's why i said in in the barangay captain who was with six cases bodhisatt we had those cases dismissed but in the case of the mayor now it's an ombudsman case she invoked the slap but that was not considered so there's a motion for a consideration now i understand that will really end up going to the high court so i think it i my my own sense there is we may need to do more research okay to me and look at the experience and see how we can help our champions because it's you do not see many champions on the local level no you know we we see a lot of problems so how do we be on slap how can we make sure that the it they will not be subjected to such harassment for for a long time so that's a wonderful question and to me it's an area of work that we need to do you know for for local government units because you do have section 16 you can invoke okay and other and other provisions of the local government code but if they say that you abuse your authority because that was the case the abuser authority uh and they had evidence etc etc and then you invoke slap at the end of the day it's really the evidence in the way the the the ombudsman or the court will appreciate it uh matthew so that's the challenge um thank you i'd like to respond to judge nono good morning judge he was asking about administration to meepo um between it was between ramos and also uh aquino where i've seen a lot of efforts uh environment on enforcement particularly between 2010 okay to 2016 because it was during that period of 2010 to 2016 uh judge that we had the rules of procedure and we had a lot of dialogues you know we also uh attempted to monitor many cases um although monitoring was before that but we did do our share of monitoring fishery cases where the batting average in terms of conviction was only 20 percent so that is my answer i mean based on experience and then environmental damages uh kenneth now fabulous that's a good question because that is where where you need science that's where you need experts example the the court will want to know okay what really was the extent of the damage to farmers and to be able to do that we will have to show the quantification of an agricultural officer and it's good that the mao spoke he was a witness and he identified the hundreds of actors that were ravaged and destroyed so that was concerned by the by the court uh that to me is a work also on our part no unless there can be legislation to actually have a criteria for for establishing that otherwise it's it's work from our side um valuation and then but we know that there are actually rules on like quantifying forestry that the dnr has that okay and then um harmonizing kosumarilos fantastic because many courts do not still understand the concept of ancestral domains and the like we have a pending case now um implementing the ipralu because a corporate plantation encroached into the ancestral mean and because it is still a certificate of ancestral domain title application you have to show that there isn't indeed uh you know it has been time immemorial so we have to show um evidence fortunately the ncip testified so i think there's more work in that area even for even for evidence um ncip has had a lot of regulations and i think the expanded knight pass law recognizes ibrah you have indigenous community uh indigenous and local community conservative area so that's already an attempt a failure to harmonize that okay now the coal moratorium oh my gosh that's a very old law and we do have the renewable energy law okay plus um and other attendant loss it's a challenge for reinforcement that's why we are proceeding with public interest litigation i have one cold case now on the local level but we have a case pending now in the supreme court still on the policy related to cole thank you thank you for that no thank you okay i saw i guess that um we have some few more questions here in the chat box so we'll just entertain the last question this is from attorney errol torres so he asked for us new in this field how and where can we access model feedings or legal forms filed by environmental lawyers or groups okay i think that is one work that we should do because there are environmental lawyers here in in this group and they can we can take a look at the feedings file in the marine mammal's case oppose a case in the greenpeace case we haven't compiled them yet so that's also a project thank you for your wonderful questions and insights because i think uh we have work to do you know research monitoring compiling good pleadings the trainings of the edb are excellent but we are building on on these groundbreaking efforts to bring it forward as i said laws are only as good as implementation there are nuances as you can see how do you make sure that you know interested young lawyers can know more besides trainings and i think clinician and mentoring sessions roundtable discussions should continue because we need young lawyers you know people like me are getting old so we need to inspire more no yes yeah conversion judge no no is also one of the pending cases now so that talks about environmental governance in land use thank you okay to end the lecture we would like to award this virtual plaque to a resource speaker for today also the legal education board presents this virtual plaque to and hello can you play the video all right so the legal education board presents this lack of appreciation to attorney griselda mayo and the executive director of environmental legal assistance center or ella for sharing her time knowledge experience as resource speaker during the environmental law teachers online training program first session state of environmental law in the philippines its evolution challenges prospects and opportu held via zoom virtual conference and given this 29th day of september in the year of our lord 2021 in manila on behalf of the legal education board signed by chairperson anna marie melanie b trinidad thank you attorney gertie for that wonderful discussion and very engaging discussion with our participants so if any of you have more questions or some concerns or would you have would you want to talk more about the discussion of attorney gertie you can just send it your questions to me we will also um send my email in the chat box later during our breakout session and you can send their questions to us and we will forward you to attorney so thank you very much thank you for the excellent questions and insights um there's more work to do but seeing all of you here inspires me that there are there's a future thank you thank you very much thank you so now we move to our breakout room session so let me read again to you the breakout room instructions so um enter the room where you are assigned by clicking join at the breakout room function and select your assigned room the breakout room function is located at the right portion of your screen next to participant and chat function can everyone see it okay so you can see it in by clicking um the function more found at the very end of your la of your right screen so click more and then a pop-up message will will show you um the following options record on this computer record on the cloud and break out rooms kindly click breakout rooms later okay so um we have some few concerns from our participants it seems that they cannot see the breakout room functions it's there already you can see it now it's there tell us okay i break out from function already okay so can everyone now see the breakout room function okay so once you enter the breakout room kindly wait for other participants to join as soon as you are complete you may now select your reporter and a note taker who will present your discussions in the main room for your room assignment please refer to the list of breakout room groups in the chat box sent to you by one of our team members a report template will also be provided for everyone in the chat box so please check again your chat box for that link um it's entitled session one um report template so the report the selected reporter notetaker use the template to record a discussion of the group and the purpose of our breakout room is to encourage an interactive and substantive discussion between the participants on the issues they encountered within their respective locality as a guide you may answer the following questions so as you fill up the report template so first what are the challenges you have encountered in the implementation of environmental law in your locality the second one is what are the prospects of environmental law you foresee in the next years and the third is the identification of opportunities to improve environmental law in the philippines so at the end of the 30 minute period the small breakout rooms will automatically close and the host will monitor the time and will give a reminder 10 minutes before the breakout room closes after the small breakout rooms participants will then converge into the main room where the moderator will select stuff will now assist us in the sharing of your group's discussion all right so you can now click the break out room function and select the rule where you are assigned i think everyone is everyone here now yes everybody's back matthew go ahead um so thank you everyone um both mary and i were jumping around from breakout room to breakout room and so we're going to have uh what we call you know a report back session um but i'm going to choose just uh three groups uh to give them maybe four minutes um to report that but we wanted just to mention the reason or the the issue about breakout rooms so today as a as part of the pedagogy of online learning we've had the guest lecture with questions and answers and so that i think attorney gertie has identified a whole range of issues and now with the breakout rooms we've tried to get you as the students as the student professors to think about the environmental law issues and the environmental issues in a broad context now as you know when we went into the breakout room we had you know 100 students student professors um and then we divided them prior to in terms of groups and you saw how that there was a time issue in terms of using the technology and there's always going to be technological glitches and so this is something that we as teachers need to be aware of and how to use the technology but also of its limitations um and some of the rooms we had planned that each would be a similar size but group one i think you were one of the largest groups um in terms of numbers and others we we had to close so that we would get a large you know seven or ten people in each breakout room um so the breakout room enables that student discussion and the professors and lecturers can move between the breakout rooms but it also does have limitations um because you're not listening or all the students aren't listening to each other so now we're going to have a report back session and you know we've often in conferences that we've been to um you'll get each group will have its um chance to report sometimes because of time pressures we don't have that time so therefore we single out either an issue that we want all the groups to just focus on or as in this case i'm going to pick three groups at random and ask those groups to have five minutes or four minutes if you can to report on the on the issues in terms of the other groups um and in particular group one and i i saw attorney galahad and attorney donna were there um we might also talk about you next week um for a little bit you can bring back on those issues um i would like to ask though room four group four um is there someone here who can uh report back and it's group four group six and group nine i'm going to ask a volunteer from each of those groups if they would be able to give a short discussion and if they can show their screen that's even better so could the the reporters back from those groups can they raise their hand using the reaction button or unmute and let us know who they are okay from ascot rocky hi good morning matthew thank you good morning classmates and thank you to the ldb and the adb and the organizers for this event where we can share our views and learn from the experts good morning everyone i am rafi duhunko i am a lawyer and i am from the aurora state college of technology so our group is made up of individuals with diverse practices so we were able to share uh several points of view regarding environmental law uh first and foremost uh as an educational institution here in ascot we specialize in forestry and environmental sciences so as an institution uh our perhaps problem area is that we have the science we have the practice we have the expertise but we do not have the legal expertise yet so under prospects and opportunities actually our college right now has a pending application with the legal education board for the establishment of a college of law here another pending application that we currently have is the offering of our course on marine biology so i guess for educational institution as a whole educational institutions as a whole maybe schools and universities can look into offering courses and programs that are related to the environment because like in the philippines we know that there are only about 20 universities offering the forestry program as a course and maybe less universities offering the marine biology program so it would be good for everybody because it's not just an environmental perspective but also from a scientific and practical application perspective as well uh second problem area that we uh identified from our group is that uh it seems that there are only a few lawyers who are engaged in the legal uh in the practice of environmental law itself due to uh the not so lucrative nature of the practice uh one of our members shared that one way to address this is actually to expand the practice by including say project development practices so that like for example our speaker earlier she was able to establish an ngo so that the practice will just not be limited to environmental law itself because it is somewhat based on a voluntary and social economic response of social economic responsibility so maybe uh we can also expand the property so that it will also be rewiring for for the lawyers uh themselves and then uh on the environmental issues themselves uh of course uh it was also mentioned by our speaker and we can confirm it in practice that there is a limited uh human resources in the dnr in practice and what we can do and the illegal activities uh currently happening in in the in the localities are mostly because of the lack of livelihood in the for the people who are involved in these activities so maybe one way to address this is to offer or make them aware that they are that there are alternative livelihood programs that they can enter which are sustainable or if they would uh remain in that industry maybe they can be taught to engage in sustainable activities instead so like in ascot one of our programs is um uh woodworking laboratories for upland farmers uh although it involves wood products we teach them to use sustainable wood materials for their livelihood so it would not it would not or it would at least lessen the harm to the environment on the violation side and this is my last point sorry matthew if i'm extending a bit uh on the on the violation side one the thing that we noted is that most violations especially those that are happening on a grander scale go unnoticed unless there is a reward of the violation and most of the violations in the local communities consist of petty petty violations such as cutting of a tree or two between neighbors so maybe the practice and the legal framework itself can focus on violations of a larger scale where the limited resources of the government and the practitioners can be uh can be put on rather than just the petty violations themselves thank you matthew and thank you to the panel i hope i did our group justice thank you to my group mates rocky thank you very much um and so we'll hear from now group six um if we could have uh someone from group six and i should just say attorney rocky when you mention marine biology i'm always excited because my brother is a professional professor of uh coral reef ecology at james cook university in in australia which i've always thought was just an excuse for him to go scuba diving he never denies it but it also shows how you know there's potential for international connections so thank you very much um so group six uh do we have um can a spokesperson from group six please raise their hand or turn on their microphone and in group nine is there someone here from group six uh i think this was from uh antonio donagha or west state university uh hi everyone hello hi thank you we volunteered sir marlon but i think he the uh he's oh there he is sir marlon i see you smiling so sir marlon would be the reporter for group six thank you okay okay i'll take that challenge and the opportunity i just hope that everybody can hear me yes and i am a public school teacher and while preparing for my modules i came across with this invitation from the legal education board and i said this could uh this could help the public school system in mathematics anyway uh again i also hope that i could do justice with my group mates because most of the time during the discussion uh i was cut off my internet production startup but anyway most of us are from region and the pico region generally when typhoon comes so we are being battered over and over again the typhoons so our main concern are the effects of the typhoon these calamities so the challenges is after the typhoon there will be distractions there will be lots of properties there will be lots of sometimes loss of life very very challenging and again lots of communications and power supply so this is the hard problem now in massbot city so maybe the prospect is how could we address these concerns uh in the new picture and more on better than the loss how could in especially that their support coming election so it is now high time for us to choose leaders leaders of the heart leaders of the experience and leaders of the college to stand for what is true and what is right and another thing that was absurd i shared probably an experience as a public school teacher most of the students especially the public school where i came from so they do not actually they do not talk about the environmental law so there is an absence of information there is an absence of maybe there is an absence of commitment because these kids do not know and the basic question is whenever i talk about environmental law in my class the basic question is sir what does it have to do with me why should i be concerned what benefit will i get from it that is uh that's one question the other question is if i get involved how do i get involved where do i go who to whom do i need to talk to and as a student i am a student grade 11 great job what can i contribute to this movement so these are some of the things that we noticed and in fairness to my group if one of my group mates would also share because during the discussion i was cut off i don't want to focus only what i shared i know that you can share much also so maybe one of the groups can add because those are the things that i noticed i was able to jot down some notes but the other proceedings of the sharing it was cut off maybe mom raise will also add to the group okay thank you paul um i think i think group six has already sent in a report so we can share that also with the group as well thank you very much for that um i like the idea what does it have to do with a very good question um so can i can i now ask group nine um because i also notice where we're getting to the end of our time and uh your time is of group nine um is there a spokes person from group nine who can give a quick conclusion yes hello everyone um i think um are you here kenneth lim can you please share very briefly our output in group nine okay um i'll take the challenge thank you attorney zamora um so this is what we discussed in our group um as you can see in the screen one of the challenges that we are facing is that how do we enforce this environmental cases how can we run after this offenders so so what we decided is that i think we you know we should train the prosecutors and environmental law enforcers on how to go about this uh how to go about the prosecution of this uh uh offenses and one of the opportunities that we have seen is that we have to offer mcle subjects or courses for lawyers and prosecutors and train the law enforcement on law enforcers on environmental enforcement okay so we can also have an agreement a partnership between the denr and ibp with regard to the implementation of this environmental law cases now i think when it comes to prosecution one of the challenges is the gathering of evidence and uh uh and we need to uh have the experts know um with a scientific background and one of our groupmates shared that it's quite expensive so that's one of the challenges that we we see you know and also um we have to empower um the lg us and the government agencies on how to uh to regulate and uh uh to regulate the uh enforcement of the environmental laws and we also see that there is a conflicting jurisdiction overlapping of claims uh and uh like permits uh licenses uh and uh ima claims engineers people okay so i think uh there should be a law no to delineate the jurisdiction of which agencies or which courts should handle these environmental cases and one of the opportunities opportunities that we have seen now is that we can uh offer um natural resources subjects in law schools because uh currently i think that there is a move to reduce the units not to two units so we think it's better to retain the uh the course as three units um so that um we can learn more so that the law students can learn more about this uh the intricacies of the law um and also i think that there is a pending uh bill on land national land use and water bill and i think we can help in uh making sure that this bill would uh adequately address um the current uh environment environmental concerns and uh lastly um since as we know the election is uh forthcoming um we have to um campaign and choose for leaders who have the heart for the environment because um at the end of the day these are the people who will uh enforce our laws because we have the supporting role but we need these people that um who are really committed to defend and champion for our environment so i think i have uh used up our time so thank you very much to uh especially to our groupmates because um they have shared a lot of amazing insights so i learned a lot from them thank you very much thank you very much sir um thank you very much indeed for that rich sharing and we will gather those reports so please whatever you have if you can send to us i mean if this was the first uh or second session for uh an environmental law course we've already got a rich number of of topics for um discussion and debate or student projects um that students can do and so this is part of what we're trying to think is how we can then um excite students and we're all students in terms of that at learning and and how it goes on through the the course of teaching over the semester um so i want to thank all of the groups um for all your participation and uh if people could um share and send their reports um we can use this and it also helps as a basis for considering what other steps uh are needed to ensure that the environmental natural resources law curriculum development and training and teaching is very relevant um to students and i think one of the things we recognize is that our students these days they want they want to know how it relates to them how it will benefit them um we know how important the environment is and and how intimately it is important but um you know we also know that lawyers say well is this going to be in the bar exam um is that what i have to study um and these are some of the other key issues in terms of promoting and developing environmental and natural resources law and ralph has also asked to remind everyone if you could fill out the attendance sheet and there's a short evaluation form and again constant evaluation is very important for us to be able to modify the course and ensure that we are meeting your needs as as teachers just as teachers need to ensure that we are responding to the concerns of students so thank you very much and i'm going to hand back now uh to mary uh and com georgioville for some final closing words and to invite you all for next week's um uh situation thank you okay thank you so much matthew and thank you everyone for actively participating in the discussion in the breakout room session so before we end today's session we would like to remind everyone to send their group template in our in my email address at maria.gov lab.gov.ph i also send the email address in the chat box kindly access the same and don't forget the registration form for your attendance and the evaluation form which will also be sent in your email after this session okay so um a reminder to everyone for our october sixth second session we will be sending at the link for the zoom um in your email address as well as the program details please check your inbox and spam messages again compliance to at least nine session is required for the issuance of the training certificate we hope everyone enjoyed today's sessions and see you on october 6th come jojo would like to say some closing words or message no more just thank you everyone i'm enriched okay thank you everyone for participating this is very very a fruitful morning to everyone of us i hope you enjoy and learn some um learn learn from the discussion of our resource speaker for today so see you on the next session october 6th