Cebu Oposa...
Environmental Protection in Action!

Cebu Oposa & Environmental Laws

Antonio Oposa Jr. holds a degree in business administration but proceeded to take law. He specializes in environmental law and known as a “creative litigator, organizer and activist" (www.ciel.org).

His prowess and determination to protect the environment and nature made him known both locally and worldwide when he sued the Philippine government agencies responsible for environmental protection and conservation in two famous cases.

Oposa won the landmark Oposa Minors vs. Factoran Case when the Philippine Supreme Court upheld in 1993 that a “a group of minors had the right to sue on behalf of succeeding generations because every generation has a responsibility to the next to preserve nature” (www.ciel.org).

This is now being referred to in the Philippine and global jurisprudence as the “Oposa Doctrine.”


Cebu Oposa & Manila Bay Cleanup

In the Manila Bay Cleanup Case, Oposa acted as the counsel for a group of citizens who petitioned and compelled government agencies and local governments to clean up and restore the Bay to its “healthy state” (Doyo 2009, Inquirer.net website).

Oposa and the petitioners won the case making the Supreme Court order the DENR as a lead agency to implement policies that would clean up Manila Bay.

SOS Seas & Earth Advocates

In 2002, Oposa established the School of the Seas (S.O.S, Sea and Earth Advocates) which is fully powered by renewable energy and other sustainable and environmental living facilities.

Aside from his myriad of works regarding environmental issues, he is also very active at the Law of Nature Foundation, a non-profit organization working for environmental protection and conservation of nature in which he is one of the Board of Trustees members (see www.thelawofnature.org).

Beginning in 2004 until today, Oposa organized volunteers known as the Visayan Sea Squadron that tours in the sea using a Navy boat to guard the “ecologically-rich body of water in the Philippines to watch for violations of environmental laws and conduct a broad-based information campaign to help protect the region” (see http://www.inece.org/newsletter/9/regional).

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