Cruz and Europa v. Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources

Controversy, The American Journal of International Law, vol. 92: 414, 429 [1998]. [243] The World Bank supported the Chico Dam project. Due to the Kalingas' opposition, the WB pulled out of the project but the conflict between the Philippine government and the natives endured long after-- Marcus Colchester, Indigenous Peoples' Rights and Sustainable Resource Use in South and Southeast Asia, Indigenous Peoples of Asia, supra, pp. 59, 71-72. [244] Kingsbury, supra, at 417. [245] Section 22, Article II, 1987 Constitution. [246] Interpellation of Senator Flavier on S.B. No. 1728, Deliberation on Second Reading, November 20, 1996, p. 20. [247] Guide to R.A. 8371, Coalition for IPs Rights and Ancestral Domains, the International Labor Organization, and the ILO-Bilance- Asia Dep't, p. 3 [1999]. [248] Also referred to as the "Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989." [249] See Introduction to ILO Convention No. 169, par. 4. [250] Id., pars. 5 and 6. [251] Perfecto V. Fernandez, Towards a Definition of National Policy on Recognition of Ethnic Law within the Philippine Legal Order, 55 P.L.J. 383, 385 [1980]. [252] Samuel K. Tan, A History of the Philippines, Manila Studies Association, Inc. and the Phil. National Historical Society, Inc., p. 6 [1997]. [253] Fernandez, supra, at 385, 391. SEPARATE OPINION VITUG, J.: An issue of grave national interest indeed deserves a proper place in any forum and, when it shows itself in a given judicial controversy, the rules of procedure, like locus standi, the propriety of the specific remedy invoked, or the principle of hierarchy of courts, that may ordinarily be raised by party-litigants, should not be so perceived as good and inevitable justifications for advocating timidity, let alone isolationism, by the Court. A cardinal requirement, to which I agree, is that one who invokes the Court's adjudication must have a personal and substantial interest in the dispute;[1] indeed, the developing trend would require a logical nexus between the status asserted and the claim sought to be adjudicated in order to ensure that one is the proper and appropriate party to invoke judicial power.[2] The rule requires a party to aptly show a personal stake in the outcome of the