Group seeks SC TRO vs tree-cutting for SALEx, questions PPP law

MANILA, Philippines — A group of college students on Thursday filed a petition with the Supreme Court (SC) for a temporary environmental protection order (TEPO) against environment officials and SMC Southern Access Link Expressway Corp. over the mass cutting of trees along Quirino Avenue in Manila. The tree-cutting is intended to make way for the Southern Access Link Expressway (SALEx). Five students, led by journalism student Joaquin Bautista and sustainability and environment student Elisha Zantua, brought the case to the SC after a Manila regional trial court (RTC) rejected their initial bid for a TEPO due to a technicality. They said the RTC dismissed the petition in June, citing Section 23 of RA 11966, or the PPP (Public-Private Partnership) Code, which states that only the SC—and not lower courts—can issue a TEPO. This prompted the petitioners to also challenge the provision as unconstitutional. “The PPP Code itself gives a full judicial shield over a PPP project that will cause reckless ecological modifications that are irreparable,” lawyer Army Padilla-Santos, who represents the students, said in an interview after the filing. The same law also allows the suspension of lower court judges who violate the provision and issue a TEPO for a certain project. “It appends the balance of power. Why is it that they can suspend a judge, when only the Supreme Court can discipline the judges?” Santos said. READ: DENR defends mass cutting of trees in Manila for road project On May 27, Environment Secretary Juan Miguel Cuna announced that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) had temporarily suspended the cutting of hundreds of trees at the intended site of the new expressway. But at the time, more than 200 of the roughly 600 targeted trees had already been processed, according to the DENR. /mcm