Monday, October 30, 2006 Bid to require PUV use of compressed gas fizzles out
THE bid to make the country’s air cleaner just suffered a blow.
Voting unanimously, the Supreme Court’s (SC) 4th Division dismissed a petition for two transportation offices to have public utility vehicles (PUVs) run on compressed natural gas (CNG).
The High Court’s reason: a huge technicality. No law states that PUVs have to run on alternative fuel sources.
“It appears to us that more properly, the legislature should provide first the specific statutory remedy to the complex environmental problems bared by herein petitioners before any judicial recourse by mandamus is taken,” stated the ruling penned by Justice Leonardo Quisumbing.
Citing a previous ruling that stemmed from the case lawyer Antonio Oposa of Cebu filed against the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the High Court admitted that to have a clean environment is every citizen’s right.
“(But) regrettably, the plain, speedy and adequate remedy herein sought by petitioners, i.e., a writ of mandamus... is unavailing,” read the decision.
“Mandamus is available only to compel the doing of an act specifically enjoined by law as a duty. Here, there is no law that mandates the respondents LTFRB and the DOTC to order owners of motor vehicles to use CNG,” it added.
As taxpayers, a group of residents asked the SC to order the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) and the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) to make mandatory the use of compressed natural gas for PUVs.
In support of their petition, they used a study conducted here in Cebu, among other places, that states that particulate matter (PM) is deadly to people.
PMs are a “complex mixtures of dust, dirt, smoke, and liquid droplets, varying in sizes and compositions emitted into the air from various engine combustions.”
They also used a University of Philippines (UP) 1990-91 and 1994 study showing how vehicular emissions in Metro Manila resulted to the prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, and how pulmonary tuberculosis is highest among jeepney drivers.
The Office of the Solicitor General, counsel to all government agencies, opposed the petition, pointing out that no law requires the use of CNG for vehicles.
CNG, it said, is not even mentioned as alternative fuel in Republic Act 8749, or the Clean Air Act of 1999.
“Unless this law is amended to provide CNG as alternative fuel for PUVs, the respondents cannot propose that PUVs use CNG as alternative fuel,” the Solicitor General argued.
And while the SC acknowledged the petitioners intent, it explained that it cannot direct an agency to perform an act that no law requires it to do.
“Undeniably, the right to clean air not only is an issue of paramount importance to petitioners for it concerns the air they breathe, but it is also impressed with public interest.”
“The consequences of the counter-productive and retrogressive effects of a neglected environment due to emissions of motor vehicles immeasurably affect the well-being of petitioners,” the High Court said.
“As serious as the statistics are on air pollution, with the present fuel deemed toxic as they are to the environment, as fatal as these pollutants are to the health of the citizens... we must admit in particular that petitioners are unable to pinpoint the law that imposes an indubitable legal duty on respondents that will justify a grant of the writ of mandamus compelling the use of CNG for public utility vehicles,” it added. (KNR)
