MUSTANG LUMBER v. CA

MUSTANG LUMBER v. CA

G.R Nos. 104988, 106424, 123784

Ponente: J. Davide Jr.

FACTS:

On 1 April 1990, acting on an information that a huge stockpile of narra flitches, shorts, and slabs were seen inside the lumberyard of the petitioner in Valenzuela, Metro Manila, DENR organized a team of foresters and policemen and sent it to conduct surveillance at the said lumberyard. In the course thereof, the team members saw coming out from the lumberyard the petitioner's truck, loaded with lauan and almaciga lumber of assorted sizes and dimensions. Since the driver could not produce the required invoices and transport documents, the team seized the truck together with its cargo and impounded them at the DENR compound at Visayas Avenue, Quezon City. The team was not able to gain entry into the premises because of the refusal of the owner.

On 3 April 1990, the team was able to secure a search warrant from Executive Judge Adriano R. Osorio of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Valenzuela, Metro Manila. By virtue thereof, the team seized on that date from the petitioner's lumberyard four truckloads of narra shorts, trimmings, and slabs; a negligible number of narra lumber; and approximately 200,000 board feet of lumber and shorts of various species including almaciga and supa.

On 4 April 1990, the team returned to the premises of the petitioner's lumberyard in Valenzuela and placed under administrative seizure the remaining stockpile of almaciga, supa, and lauan lumber with a total volume of 311,000 board feet because the petitioner failed to produce upon demand the corresponding certificate of lumber origin, auxiliary invoices, tally sheets, and delivery receipts from the source of the invoices covering the lumber to prove the legitimacy of their source and origin.

The petitioner's question the seizure contending that the possession of lumber, as opposed to timber, is not penalized in Section 68 of P.D. No. 705, as amended, and even granting arguendo that lumber falls within the purview of the said section, the same may not be used in evidence against him for they were taken by virtue of an illegal seizure.

ISSUE:
Whether the contention of the petitioner is correct that lumber is different from timber

HELD:

No,

The Supreme Court held that the Revised Forestry Code contains no definition of either timber or lumber.

While the former is included in forest products as defined in paragraph (q) of Section 3, the latter is found in paragraph (aa) of the same section in the definition of "Processing plant."

Lumber is a processed log or processed forest raw material.

The Code uses the term lumber in its ordinary or common usage. In the 1993 copyright edition of Webster's Third New International Dictionary, lumber is defined, inter alia, as "timber or logs after being prepared for the market."

Simply put, lumber is a processed log or timber. It is settled that in the absence of legislative intent to the contrary, words and phrases used in a statute should be given their plain, ordinary, and common usage meaning.

And insofar as possession of timber without the required legal documents is concerned, Section 68 of P.D. No. 705, as amended, makes no distinction between raw or processed timber. Neither should we.

TECHNO DEVELOPERS v. CA

TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPERS, INC., v. CA

G.R. No. 94759; January 21, 1991

Ponente: J. Gancayco

FACTS:

Petitioner, a domestic private corporation engaged in the manufacture and export of charcoal briquette, received a letter from acting mayor Pablo N. Cruz, ordering the full cessation of the operation of the petitioner's plant located at Guyong, Sta. Maria, Bulacan, until further order. 

The letter likewise requested the Plant Manager to bring with him to the office of the mayor on February 20, 1989 the following: 

a) Building permit; 

b) Mayor's permit; 

c) Region III-Pollution of Environment and Natural Resources Anti-Pollution Permit; and of other document.

At the requested conference, petitioner, through its representative, undertook to comply with respondent's request for the production of the required documents.

Petitioner's attention having been called to its lack of mayor's permit, it sent its representatives to the office of the mayor to secure the same but were not entertained.

On April 6, 1989, without previous and reasonable notice upon petitioner, respondent acting mayor ordered the Municipality's station commander to padlock the premises of petitioner's plant, thus effectively causing the stoppage of its operation.

Left with no recourse, petitioner instituted an action for certiorari, prohibition, mandamus with preliminary injunction against private respondent

ISSUE:

Whether the action for preliminary injunction will prosper

HELD:

No.

The Supreme Court held in this case that No mayor's permit had been secured. It must also be recognized that the mayor of a town has as much responsibility to protect its inhabitants from pollution, and by virtue of his police power, he may deny the application for a permit to operate a business or otherwise close the same unless appropriate measures are taken to control and/or avoid injury to the health of the residents of the community from the emissions in the operation of the business,

 The closure order of the Acting Mayor was issued only after an investigation was made and it was observed that the fumes emitted by the plant of petitioner goes directly to the surrounding houses and that no proper air pollution device has been installed. Petitioner also failed to produce a building permit from the municipality of Sta. Maria, but instead presented a building permit issued by an official of Makati on March 6, 1987. 

While petitioner was able to present a temporary permit to operate by the then National Pollution Control Commission on December 15, 1987, the permit was good only up to May 25, 1988. 

Petitioner had not exerted any effort to extend or validate its permit much less to install any device to control the pollution and prevent any hazard to the health of the residents of the community.