DISSENTING OPINION

Locus standi or legal standing has been defined as a personal and substantial interest in a case such that the party has sustained or will sustain direct injury as a result of the governmental act that is being challenged.

(Galicto vs Aquino III, GR. No. 193978, Feb. 28, 2012)

TINSAY, J:

I dissent.

Trees cannot be represented. The Tree Lovers have no standing because Section 1, Rule 3 of the Rules of Court requires parties to an action to be either natural or juridical persons.

The law is devised to afford a remedy if legal rights are breached. Thus, remedies are related directly to rights and only those whose rights are involved are entitled to be awarded a remedy by the court. To bring a case before the court, it is necessary to have legal ‘standing’ which is referred to as locus standi. That is, the court recognizes the person/s as an appropriate party to bring a court action in a matter because it is their rights involved.

The rationale for this constitutional condition of locus standi is by no means trifle. Not only does it guarantee the vital adversary presentation of the case; more importantly, it must serve to merit the Judiciary’s overruling the determination of a coordinate, democratically elected organ of government, such as the President, and the clear approval by Congress, in this case. Indeed, the rationale goes to the very essence of representative democracies

Neither can the lack of locus standi be cured by the petitioner’s claim that environmental cases have been given a more liberalized approach.

While the petition raises vital constitutional and statutory questions concerning Environmental Cases which allow for a citizen suit and permit any Filipino citizen to file an action before our courts for violations of our environmental laws, the same cannot “infuse” or give the petitioner locus standi under the transcendental importance or paramount public interest doctrine In Oposa v. Facturan, the Supreme Court allowed the suit to be brought in the name of generations yet unborn “based on the concept of intergenerational responsibility in so far as the right to a balanced and healthful ecology is concerned wherein it was given a more liberalized approach on the stringent locus standi requirement, such heroic effort would be futile because the transcendental issue could not be resolved any way, due to procedural infirmities and shortcomings, as in the present case.

Like this, giving due course to the present petition which is burdened with formal and procedural infirmities cannot but be an exercise in futility that does not merit the Court’s liberality.  As we emphasized in Lozano v. Nograles, “while the Court has taken an increasingly liberal approach to the rule of locus standi, evolving from the stringent requirements of ‘personal injury’ to the broader ‘transcendental importance’ doctrine, such liberality is not to be abused.”

Rights are interpreted as the level of personal or special interest a person has in a case and they therefore determine an applicant’s eligibility to ‘standing’ before the court. Thus, if a person’s legal right has been breached, or there has been a breach of a legal right they have a special interest in, then they can bring the matter to court.

A person or a group might have a very strong belief or emotional concern regarding the preservation of the environment. Even though in a general sense that is what we would call a special interest, it isn’t what the courts would consider a special interest.

Standing is governed by the “real-parties-in-interest” rule as contained in Section 2, Rule 3 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure, as amended. It stipulates that “every action must be prosecuted or defended in the name of the real party in interest.” Thus, the “real-party-in interest” is “the party who stands to be benefited or injured by the judgment in the suit or the party entitled to the avails of the suit.” The real party in interest is the people. Thus any action should be brought by a person or in behalf of another person entitled to such right or in behalf of the generations yet to be born, as what has been granted in case of Oposa vs. Factoran but surely not in behalf of trees.

Furthermore, the majority’s opinion—other than the notion that inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation—does not provide clear legal basis for trees to be represented. Trees having locus standi is neither presently provided in our Rules of Court nor found in any statute or provision of the Constitution.

Environmental laws are created in order to protect the right of the people to a healthy environment and not for the enforcement to the right of the environment.

This case leaves this court open to justifiable criticism on granting that trees have legal standing or locus standi.

Worse, it puts pressure on all trial courts that will be predictably be deluged with petitions on the basis of substantial justification on the notion that animals or even non-living objects have locus standi.

This may be a procedural issue but the paramount importance of this case demands strict interpretation of the rules. A liberal interpretation of the rules is not a magical incantation, least this court most respectfully risk itself to be judged by history and be immortalized by criticism.