Cutaran vs. Department of Environment and Natural Resources

A court will not pass upon the validity of an administrative issuance where no governmental act has yet directly or imminently injured the challenger's asserted right, the competing ancestral-land application still being unacted upon and ungranted.

Patricio Cutaran, David Dangwas and Pacio Dosil occupy portions of land inside the Camp John Hay Reservation claimed as ancestral land, while the Department of Environment and Natural Resources administers ancestral-land claims through task forces created by department special orders. Republic Act No. 7586, the National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS) Act of 1992, accords recognition to ancestral lands and customary rights within protected areas and directs the DENR to prescribe rules governing ancestral lands therein. Republic Act No. 8371, the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997, later vested evaluation and issuance of ancestral-land titles in the National Commission on Indigenous Cultural Communities/Indigenous People.

In 1990, the Assistant Secretary for Luzon Operations of the DENR issued Special Order No. 31, as amended by Nos. 31-A and 31-B, creating a special task force to accept, identify, evaluate and delineate ancestral land claims in the Cordillera Administrative Region and, after evaluation, to recommend issuance of appropriate titles or Certificates of Ancestral Land Claim in accordance with existing laws. On January 15, 1993, the DENR Secretary issued Special Order No. 25 creating provincial and community special task forces for the identification, delineation and recognition of ancestral land and domain claims nationwide, together with Department Administrative Order No. 02 containing its implementing rules and guidelines.

In 1990, the same year Special Order No. 31 was issued, the relatives of petitioners Patricio Cutaran, David Dangwas and Pacio Dosil filed separate applications for certificates of ancestral land claim over land they respectively occupy inside the Camp John Hay Reservation. In 1996, those applications were denied by the DENR Community Special Task Force on Ancestral Lands on the ground that the Bontoc and Applai tribes to which they belong are not among the recognized tribes of Baguio City. Pursuant to the same administrative issuances, the Heirs of Apeng Carantes filed Application No. BG-J-319 for certification of ancestral land claim over a parcel also within Camp John Hay and overlapping portions occupied by petitioners.

According to petitioners, even though no certificate had yet been issued to the Carantes heirs, the latter, on the strength of certain documents issued by the DENR, tried to take possession of the applied area including the portion occupied by petitioners and removed some improvements introduced therein, and petitioners would have been totally evicted had they not timely resisted. Petitioners therefore filed a petition for prohibition to enjoin implementation of DENR Special Order Nos. 31, as amended, 31-A and 31-B, Special Order No. 25 and all related issuances as issued without prior legislative authority, and to enjoin processing of the Carantes application. By petitioners' own admission as gathered from the petition and memorandum, the Carantes application had not been granted, no certificate applied for had been issued, and the DENR was still processing the application which it may or may not grant.

• Absence of Publication: Petitioner argued that the assailed administrative issuances were not published in a newspaper of general circulation prior to implementation.
• No Delegated Adjudicatory Power Under RA 7586: Petitioner maintained that RA 7586, which creates a National Integrated Protected Areas System, contains no grant of authority to the DENR to adjudicate or confer title over lands occupied by indigenous communities, but only grants administrative and managerial powers over designated parks called protected areas where rare and endangered species inhabit.
• Withholding of Authority Shown by RA 8371: Petitioner contended that the 1997 passage of Republic Act No. 8371, vesting evaluation and issuance of certificates of ancestral land titles in the National Commission on Indigenous Cultural Communities/Indigenous People, unmistakably indicates legislative withholding of title-conferring authority from the DENR.
• Constitutional Policy Provisions Not Self-Executing: Petitioner claimed that constitutional provisions on protection of cultural communities invoked to sustain the orders are mere policy statements to guide the legislature and are not self-executory.

• Authority Under RA 7586 to Protect Indigenous Interests: Respondent countered that the special orders were issued pursuant to powers granted by RA 7586 to protect the socio-economic interests of indigenous peoples, with the occupied land lying within a protected area as defined by that law and well within DENR jurisdiction.
• Estoppel by Prior Invocation: Respondent argued that petitioners are estopped from contesting the validity of the issuances because their relatives applied for certificates of ancestral land claim under those same special orders, which applications were denied, and petitioners should not be allowed to challenge orders they previously invoked.

• Justiciable Controversy: Whether a justiciable controversy exists to permit adjudication of the validity of DENR Special Order No. 25 and DAO No. 02 where the competing ancestral-land application has not been granted and remains pending.
• Validity of Special Order No. 25: Whether DENR Special Order No. 25, series of 1993, and its implementing rules in DAO No. 02 were issued beyond the jurisdiction or power of the DENR Secretary under the NIPAS Act of 1992.

• Justiciable Controversy: No. No justiciable controversy was presented, the Carantes application being still ungranted and pending, with no actual or imminent violation of petitioners' asserted possessory right by implementation of the questioned issuances.
• Validity of Special Order No. 25: Not reached. The validity of Special Order No. 25 and DAO No. 02 was left undecided, adjudication being premature absent a governmental act with direct adverse effect on petitioners' legal right.

• Justiciable Controversy: A justiciable controversy requires a definite and concrete dispute touching legal relations of parties with adverse legal interests, resolvable through application of law, and courts desist from speculative, hypothetical, advisory or moot cases. Subject to well-defined exceptions, validity of a law or regulation is not touched unless a governmental act accomplished or performed directly and adversely affects the challenger's legal right. Here the adverse interests were the competing possessory claims of petitioners and the Carantes heirs, yet no certificate had been issued and the DENR may or may not grant the pending application; petitioners' allegation of DENR-backed eviction attempts was vague and unverified, and mere apprehension of future approval is speculation insufficient to invoke jurisdiction.
• Validity of Special Order No. 25: Because the petition was prematurely filed and should have been dismissed on justiciability grounds, the merits of petitioners' contentions on publication, scope of delegation under RA 7586, effect of RA 8371, and self-execution of constitutional policy provisions were not resolved. If the Carantes heirs were entering and disturbing possession without prior DENR approval, the dispute was characterized as simply one for forcible entry rather than a basis for prohibiting implementation of the issuances.

• Justiciable controversy — Defined as a definite and concrete dispute touching on the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests which may be resolved by a court through application of law; applied to find none where the challenged issuances had produced no granted title and the competing application remained pending with only speculative future injury.
• Prematurity and speculative injury bar judicial review — Courts have no judicial power to review political questions and, as a rule, desist from speculative or hypothetical cases, advisory opinions, and moot cases; applied to decline review because petitioners suffered no wrong yet and only apprehended that the DENR might approve the overlapping claim.
• Actual governmental act requirement for testing validity — Subject to well-defined exceptions, validity of a law or regulation will not be touched unless a governmental act accomplished or performed has a direct adverse effect on the challenger's legal right; applied to require an actual or imminently injurious DENR act, such as grant of the certificate or DENR-ordered eviction, before jurisdiction attaches.

• "a definite and concrete dispute touching on the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interest" — States the canonical definition of justiciable controversy relied upon to dismiss the petition as premature.
• "Courts have no judicial power to review cases involving political questions and as a rule, will desist from taking cognizance of speculative or hypothetical cases, advisory opinions and in cases that has become moot." — Articulates the restraint doctrine barring adjudication of the DENR orders on mere apprehension of future approval.
• "They (the petitioners) have suffered no wrong under the terms of the law—and, naturally need no relief in the form they now seek to obtain." — Borrowed from PACU vs. Secretary of Education to hold that speculation about future denial or approval does not entitle petitioners to prohibition.

• PACU vs. Secretary of Education, 97 Phil. 806 — Controlling analogy where a challenge to a permit regulation was dismissed because petitioners held permits and only feared future denial; followed to hold petitioners' fear of future approval of the Carantes claim non-justiciable, with review available only upon revocation, denial, or actual adverse act.
• Macasiano vs. National Housing Authority, 224 SCRA 238 — Cited on the definition and requirement of justiciable controversy resolvable through application of law.
• Tan vs. Macapagal, 43 SCRA 678 — Cited for the rule that courts will not touch validity of a law absent a governmental act with direct adverse effect on the challenger's right.
• Dumlao vs. Comelec, 95 SCRA 392 — Cited as recognizing well-defined exceptions to the restraint against deciding validity issues.
• Solicitor-General vs. MMA, December 11, 1991 — Cited alongside Dumlao vs. Comelec on exceptions to reaching constitutional or validity questions.

• Section 13, RA 7586 (NIPAS Act of 1992) — Provides that ancestral lands and customary rights shall be accorded due recognition and directs the DENR to prescribe rules governing ancestral lands within protected areas, without power to evict indigenous communities without consent and subject to notice and hearing; relied upon by the Court of Appeals to sustain Special Order No. 25, but its scope was left undecided for lack of justiciability.
• Section 22, Article II; Section 5, Article XII; Section 6, Article XIII, 1987 Constitution — Invoked in DAO No. 02 as mandating recognition and protection of indigenous cultural communities' ancestral lands; petitioners contended these are non-self-executory policy guides, an issue not reached on the merits.
• Executive Order No. 192 — Invoked in DAO No. 02 as empowering the DENR to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over management and disposition of public-domain lands; cited as stated basis for the implementing rules whose validity was not reached.
• Sections 38 and 42(e), RA 8371 (Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997) — Vest evaluation and issuance of ancestral-land titles in the National Commission on Indigenous Cultural Communities/Indigenous People; petitioners cited the statute as proof that title-conferring power was withheld from the DENR, an issue not reached on the merits.

Melo, J., Vitug, J., Panganiban, J., and Sandoval-Gutierrez, J., concur.