Writ of kalikasan sought vs US, PH officials over Guardian grounding

From InterAksyon (Apr 17): Writ of kalikasan sought vs US, PH officials over Guardian grounding

Environmentalist groups on Wednesday filed a petition for a writ of kalikasan against American and Philippine officials led by President Benigno Aquino III to lay accountability for the damage caused by the grounding of a US Navy minesweeper on Tubbataha Reef.

The petition also named US 7th Fleet commander Scott Swift and USS Guardian commander Mark Rice.

The suit seeks to make the US “legally accountable” for the grounding of the Guardian on the UNESCO World Heritage Site on January 17, the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers said in a statement.

The minesweeper was dismantled and finally removed from the reef on March 30. The grounding damaged more than 2,345 square meters of corals.

“The suit was filed on behalf of the Filipinos living in the provinces surrounding Tubbataha Reef on the Sulu Sea -- namely, Palawan, Antique, Aklan, Guimaras, Iloilo, Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, Zamboanga del Norte, Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi,” the NUPL said.

The writ of kalikasan is an extraordinary legal remedy in cases involving environmental damage that could pose a risk to life, health and property of residents in two or more cities or provinces.

“This petition for the issuance of the writ of kalikasan raises novel questions because it presents a nexus between the environment and foreign military troops,” the NUPL’s Edsel Tupaz, main counsel in the suit, said in the statement.

The NUPL is co-counsel in the citizen’s suit.

In the same statement, NUPL secretary general Edre Olalia said that, aside from the environmental and ecological impacts, the Guardian grounding also “puts (tp the) fore the continuing disrespect and insolence on our territorial integrity and national sovereignty.”

The lawyers’ group slammed the Aquino government for its “double standard” in not acting on the grounding of the Guardian in contrast to its prosecution of 12 Chinese fishermen whose vessel sailed onto Tubbataha just days after the minesweeper was removed.

“Instead, the Aquino administration has focused on recovering nominal, even trifling damages, not enough to finance rehabilitation of the reef, and petty compensation for what was lost to the Philippine ecology when the USS Guardian so severely damaged the incomparably rich Tubbataha reef,” Olalia said. “The defense of US officials to escape liability does not hold water under national and international laws and jurisprudence.”

He added that the incident bolsters calls for the abrogating of the Visiting Forces Agreement, which he called “outdated and reflects US arrogance and interventionism.”

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/59658/writ-of-kalikasan-sought-vs-us-ph-officials-over-guardian-grounding