Charter expert, cardinal help fishers question court ruling
Constitution framer Christian Monsod and Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David have asked the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling allowing commercial fishing within the 15-kilometer municipal waters, saying it went against the Charter’s intent.
In their 31-page petition for certiorari filed before the high tribunal on Thursday, they said the framers of the 1987 Constitution enshrined the rights of marginalized fishermen to protect them from “powerful and moneyed interests.”
“Born by the need to achieve social justice, the Constitution plays favorites. The overarching principle of the Constitution is to prioritize subsistence fishermen in local communities in the utilization of the State’s communal marine and fishing resources,” Monsod and David, along with the Environmental Legal Assistance Center (Elac), said.
The petition specifically seeks to reverse the Dec. 11, 2023 decision of the Malabon Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 170, which invalidated several provisions of Republic Act No. 8550 or the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998, as well as Department of Agriculture Administrative Order No. 10, Series of 2015.
Mercidar Fishing Corp., Judge Zaldy Docena of Malabon RTC Branch 170, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), and the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) were named respondents in the case.
SC’s unsigned resolution
In its 2023 ruling, the lower court allowed Mercidar to operate across all territorial waters of the Philippines, regardless of the 15-km limit, as long as the waters are at least seven fathoms deep.
The court held that the 15-km boundary for municipal waters lacked scientific basis and was merely a “political” demarcation.
Environmental group Oceana filed a separate petition in January challenging the same decision. It revealed that the Supreme Court, in an unsigned resolution dated Aug. 19, 2024, upheld the Malabon RTC ruling.
Under the high court’s internal rules, an unsigned resolution resolves a case on the merits but does not have significant doctrinal value and is generally of limited interest to the legal community, the academe, or the public.
In their latest petition, Monsod, David and Elac accused Docena of violating the separation of powers doctrine by failing to defer properly to the legislative and executive as coequal branches of government.
“A case of this nature should be easy enough to parse and understand for any right-minded judge: a corporation that invokes the Constitution to undo the decades-old delineation and jurisdiction of LGUs (local government units) over municipal waters must, at the very least, contend first with the deference due to Congress and the Executive as coordinate and co-equal branches of government,” the petitioners said.
‘Sluggish defense’
They further alleged that Docena committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction by “rewrit[ing] into the Constitution his own preference for the very ‘sharks’ the framers were guarding against.”
The petitioners also faulted Mercidar for failing to implead indispensable parties—including Congress, all LGUs with jurisdiction over municipal waters, and all Integrated Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Management Councils—rendering the proceedings and orders before the RTC void and meriting a remand of the case.
In impleading BFAR and the OSG, the petition cited the agencies’ “sluggish defense” of their mandates under the Fisheries Code. It also accused the OSG of “gross negligence in defending the welfare of the people.”
The petition noted that BFAR and the OSG failed to respond on time to Mercidar’s complaint before the RTC, leading to an order of default. Worse, the petitioners said, the agencies also allegedly failed to file a timely notice of appeal, which led to the dismissal of their petition before the Supreme Court’s First Division.
“As ‘public service providers,’ the lackadaisical defense of the Public Respondents DA-BFAR and OSG of their mandates leave much to be desired, and the petitioners are now constrained to directly defend their own interests as Filipinos, concerned citizens, and stewards of nature, on behalf of the Filipino people,” the petitioners said.
Fisherfolk’s dire condition
In December last year, Oceana criticized the RTC ruling saying that it will render fisherfolk “even poorer than their current already dire condition.”
“They anticipate the fish stocks to be depleted further and that its recovery will be almost impossible,” it said, emphasizing that the Constitution was clear on its social justice provision mandating preferential access to artisanal fisherfolk in the 15-km municipal waters.
“The designation of this protected zone in the Fisheries Code as amended by RA 10654 was based on science—on the need to protect the important and interconnected marine habitats and ecosystems that will help restore our fisheries. Despite this provision, overfishing and illegal commercial fishing were and remain pervasive and which have caused our fish population to decline,” said Gloria Estenzo Ramos, Oceana vice president.
