Manila Times Sunday, March 08, 2009
Sunday-Manila
Times-8 March 2009.doc
Earth shaker: Atty. Antonio Oposa and the Law of Nature
By Rome Jorge, Lifestyle Editor Photos by Angelo Cantera
On June 5, World Environment Day, lawyers from across the country
will simultaneously file court cases against local and national
government agencies for failing to implement existing laws.
As you read this article, some of the most respected and powerful
attorneys in the nation are meeting in a resort in Anilao, Batangas
and planning in between scuba dives—for they are all passionate
nature lovers—a coordinated legal attack on those who fail to keep
their word and trample on the letter of the law.
“Our leaders, generally, are not afraid of the law. But there is
something they’re afraid of—lawyers. Even us lawyers, we are afraid
of lawyers. If we receive a demand letter from a lawyer, even we
lawyers are scared,” explains Atty. Antonio Oposa of Batas
Kalikasan (Law of Nature) Foundation, a registered non-profit legal
organization. ‘To Filipinos, may we learn to make less laws.
Instead, may we learn to make them work just a little bit more,”
reads the preface to his book, A Legal Arsenal for the Philippine
Environment. “We will use legal aikido. We will use their own
force, their own laws, against them,” he explains.
Oposa recently won a landmark, decade-long battle to compel a dozen
government agencies to clean up Manila Bay. “I got somewhere with
Manila Bay. It took me 10 years. But what if there are two of us?
What if there was another crazy son of a gun like me? What if there
are 10 of us? It will be mayhem,” he promises. Already, he is
confident of amassing more than enough lawyers for each of the 81
provinces.
Crazy is one thing he is not. Oposa has the legal victories and
international awards to back up his sharp wit. Madly passionate
about the environment is one thing he definitely is. For far too
long the stereotype of an environmentalist has been the
tree-hugging, boat-ramming, protest song-singing adherents of civil
disobedience—colorful gadflies who raise awareness by breaking the
law. Now, Oposa is recruiting an army of attorneys to arm
environmental advocacy with the teeth and claw of the law. And if
there’s one man who can pull off such a crazy thing, it is Oposa.
Walk the walk, talk the talk
In 1997, he was bestowed a laureate of the United Nations
Environment Programme’s Global 500 Roll of Honor—the highest award
that the international body can bestow—a decade before Nobel Peace
prize winner Al Gore did in 2007. He was featured by the Harvard
Law Bulletin for Summer 2008—an issue before fellow Harvard Law
alumni and US President Barack Obama garnered himself a page on the
esteemed magazine. In 2000, he was elected as the first Asian on
the board of trustees of the Center for International Environmental
Law in Washington, D.C.
He received The Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines Award in
1993. He is chairman of the National Environmental Action Team of
the Integrated Bar of the Philippines. From time to time he has
appeared in a few local headlines. In 2004, he successfully led and
funded operations against illegal dynamite fishing the National
Bureau of Investigation, Navy Seal special forces, Maritime Police,
Bantay Dagat and his own Visayan Sea Squadron which netted 6,000
dynamite sticks—a ton of explosives—and landed perpetrators in
jail. He has also helped organize several raids against illegal
logging operations in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
He has authored two internationally-acclaimed books: The Laws of
Nature and Other Stories which showcases both his humor and his
experience in environmental advocacy and A Legal Arsenal for the
Philippine Environment which, as its name plainly says, has armed
him and others for legal battles on environmental front. As a
testament to his zeal in spreading the word, he has rescinded his
own copyright and allows anyone to copy and distribute his books.
He has even given the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (DENR) and the Supreme Court copies of its printing
plates for their own use.
A professor teaching Environmental Law at the University of the
Philippines College of Law and the Philippine Judicial Academy,
Oposa sets an example for a new generation of attorneys. His
landmark case to stop all illegal logging in remaining forests
entitled Minors of the Philippines versus the Secretary of the
DENR—the first filed in behalf of a future generation—is now being
taught in law schools the world over for having set the precedent
for the principle of inter-generational responsibility. “I sued the
Philippine government for the deforestation of the Philippines,”
Oposa plainly explains.
The case hinged upon the enforcement of one sentence in the 1987
Constitution of the Philippines. Section 16, Article II of the
Constitution reads: “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.”
According to the DENR’s own findings, only 4 percent remains of the
Philippines’ original forests. The lack of forest cover has led to
irreversible damage such as erosion, water shortage, landslides,
floods and salt-water intrusion.
Though in 1993 the Solicitor General’s Office won against Oposa,
the court ruled nonetheless on the right of future generations.
Then DENR Secretary Angel Alcala also unlilaerally rescinded all
logging permits on virgin forest.
Last year, Oposa won the case Concerned Citizens of Manila Bay
versus the Philippine Government, a legal battle that was first
filed 1999 and went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Again, the
case hinged upon holding government accountable to following the
letter of the law—one sentence to be exact, written in 1977.
Section 17 of Presidential Decree No. 1152 entitled Philippine
Environmental Code reads: “Where the quality of water has
deteriorated to a degree where its state will adversely affect its
best usage, the government agencies concerned shall take such
measures as may be necessary to upgrade the quality of such water
to meet the prescribed water quality standards.”
The same PD goes on to state in its Section 20 entitled Clean-up
Operations: “It shall be the responsibility of the polluter to
contain, remove and clean up water pollution incidents at his own
expense. In case of his failure to do so, the government agencies
concerned shall undertake containment, removal and clean-up
operations and expenses incurred in said operations shall be
charged against the persons and/or entities responsible for such
pollution.”
The standard fecal coliform for a body of water to be swimmable is
100 colonies/100 ml. According to the DENR and Partnerships in
Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia, Manila Bay has
a fecal coliform of over 50,000 colonies/100 ml. “That’s toxic.
What kind of people are we that we would turn the richest marine
water into a toilet bowl that we don’t even bother to flush?” he
asks.
The original complaint filed at the Regional Trial Court of Imus
Cavite notes, “This law has been long existing in the statute books
but has athropied in the sickbed of non-compliance.”
The waters of Manila Bay are also positive for high amounts of
mercury, lead and other persistent organic pollutants. These
chemicals cannot be naturally degraded. They are absorbed by
organisms and accumulate in concentration in species at the top of
the food chain such as humans. The Manila Bay, besides providing
fishing grounds for locals, sits at the apex of the Sulu-Sulawesi
Marine Triangle—one of the richest and most fragile ecosystems on
earth upon which millions depends upon for their sustenance.
By holding government to its word, Oposa compelled 12 government
agencies to comply and come under the scrutiny and monitoring every
90 days of an independent commission composed by the University of
the Philippines Marine Science Institute, Ateneo School of
Government Dean Antonio La Viña, Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr. and
former DENR Secretary Elisea Gozun among others. This victory is
but one of many that has earned Oposa plaudits throughout the
world.
Nonetheless, few know him in his own country. And that’s the way he
likes it. “If you’re well known here, people try to pull you down.
If they find out you’re well known abroad, they’re proud of you,”
he observes. To his credit, Oposa has earned the enmity of illegal
logging and dynamite fishing syndicates and has received death
threats. In 2006, Elpidio de la Victoria, head of a local Bantay
Dagat chapter, was murdered days after leading a raid with Oposa.
But facing the threat of death is nothing new for the lawyer.
Fire and water
The long sleeved shirts he wears to his office and wet suits he
dons for scuba diving conceal much of his scars. Often, all that
clearly shows is his left pointing finger, mangled and fused into a
hook by searing heat.
On December 29, 1979, then 23-year-old Oposa nearly died in a fire
that burned to the ground his family’s 10-bedroom mansion in Cebu.
“I suffered third degree burns on most of my body. I was in a
virtual coma because they had to give me demerol all the time. The
pain was unbearable. When people put out the flames on clothes, my
skin just fell off. I went blind for a week. I couldn’t see
anything because my eyes were swollen. I recuperated for almost a
year,” recalls.
“I was on top of the world one day. I had three four girlfriends at
a time, I had a car, I had more money I could spend. I had good
looks. I was in UP [University of the Philippines] Law School. And
then all of a sudden, you’re down. You’re out. You’re practically
zero. You cannot even defecate on your own.”
He admits, “I was a rich kid. When I was 20, I graduated from La
Salle College an honor student. My course was BSBA [Bachelor of
Science in Business Administration]. But I didn’t know how to read.
It was just boring.” He notes that he chose to take up Law to force
himself to read.
Nonetheless, when faced with death, this rich kid thought, “If I’m
going to die, I going to die fighting.” Despite being badly burned,
Oposa made his way out of the fire on his own two feet.
After a year, he began to walk again. Oposa took his studies
seriously. A scion of a landed family from Cebu at the prime of his
life, Oposa had been unburdened of his vanity and idleness. He
passed the Bar as the top 14th. Despite having little money to
spare, he began accepting criminal cases in Cebu pro bono. “I was
not rich anymore. Everything was lost when our house was burned
down. There was no insurance,” he recalls. He met accountant Greely
Remulla of the political clan from Cavite and in 1985 they married.
Today they have four children. But even as he settled down with
family life, Oposa knew that the beaten path was not for him.
“There was no such thing as environmental movement then. I heard
that there was such an animal called environmental law. And in
fact, it was my wife who encouraged me to specialize in something.
But what is it that I’m going to specialize in? The only thing that
I really cared about was the wind, the air, the trees and the fish?
Whose going to pay my attorney’s fees? There were no materials
except a small article. On the basis of that article I wrote a
bigger one in 1987. It attracted a little attention. When I saw
there were others like myself, it excited me.”
In 1989, he availed of a two-month scholarship in the University in
Norway for Energy Planning and Environment. “It was the first time
I had heard of global warming,” he recalls. He went on to take his
masters degree in law at Harvard where he became the commencement
speaker for the graduates of 1997. The man’s fire remains
undiminished to this day.
Though his burns may have tempered and steeled his character, his
affinity for the sea and his rejection of the consumerist lifestyle
came earlier.
A man apart
Oposa shares, “My grandfather, he had a lot of land but he didn’t
know how to plant. He was a merchant marine. When I was a kid, he
would bring me whenever they’d go to pick up boats. Now that I look
back, it made for my close affinity to the sea.”
He recalls, “My grandfather taught me: Live simply.” He remembers
immersing himself at his family’s property on Bantayan Island with
the barest of necessities.
“I was able to adjust. I loved it. I only ate twice a day very
basic food—sweet potato, bananas. I woke up very early, slept very
early. There was no electricity. And then I went into the rhythm.
This is a beautiful life. That was 1975,” he remembers.
This experience not only enamored him to the simple life but also
awaked his environmental awareness: “That’s when I started seeing,
how people were abusive to the sea. They would catch even the
smallest fish. And then I started thinking about ‘economic
development.’ Everybody in the world will have cars? Where will you
put all those cars? Everybody will have TV sets? Where will we get
all that metal for those TV sets?”
Today at age 53, Oposa works in a small office a short ride from
his home with basket weave and bamboo for walls and ceiling and a
tiny fishpond and some vines for décor. His computer is nothing
more than a diminutive netbook and his car is one of the most
affordable subcompacts.
The man is far from poor; his tasteful, elegant and yet understated
home as well as his outdoor hobbies such as scuba diving and
sailing attest to his power to provide a good life for his family
and himself. Besides owning a chicken farm in his wife’s province
of Cavite, he is also chairman and president of the Bank of Ormoc.
He is no ascetic either. He likes a bit of ice cream after a meal
of fried chicken and cusses in the most entertaining and positively
motivational fashion.
The man who calls himself a “crazy son of a gun” is looking for
likeminded lawyers. Already a number have heeded his call. Atty.
Antonio Oposa may just pull off making sense of our laws and make
government conform more to the law of nature.
The Batas Kalikasan (Law of Nature) Foundation is located at Suite
6-J Westgate Tower, Investment Drive, Madrigal Business Park, Ayala
1780 Alabang, Muntinlupa City. For details, call 809-6122, e-mail
tonyoposa@thelawofnature.org or visit
www.thelawofnature.org.
