ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT BUREAU POLLUTION ADJUDICATION BOARD (DENR) Background: Our group visited Pollution Adjudication Board (PAB)

) wherein we were given the chance to interview its Secretary and Legal Counsel, Atty. Jonas Leones. He spoke a few words about the function of said Board. According to Atty. Leones, PAB is under the supervision of the Office of the Secretary of DENR. It is a quasi-judicial body which has jurisdiction over cases involving violations of the Clean Water Act of 2004 (RA9275) and the Clean Air Act (RA 8749). Atty. Leones also laid down the procedure for the cases under its authority. According to him, whenever a complaint is filed before their regional branches they immediately send the notice to the defendant and thereafter, the will conduct a technical conference. He told us that most PAB cases only entail the complainant and the defendant to submit pleadings, that is the reason why both parties are not required to hire lawyers to defend their interests. Hearings are usually conducted when the case involves a large scale violation like the one involved in the case of MWSS and Philiex Mining Corp. In relation to Legal Counseling: When we went to the office of PAB, we didnt have the chance to witness a hearing conducted by the board because according to Atty. Leones, appearances by the parties are not usually required and are rare. We, then, just asked about how lawyers act when they appear before the board, on how they present themselves before the ones hearing their cases. Atty. Leones told us that there are some who abide by the rules but he was candid enough that some lawyers, especially those who are handling large cases, try to bend the rules and delay the proceedings. He told us that some lawyers, instead of making appeals directly to the Court of Appeals, would still go to the Regional Trial Court because of the cheaper filing fee and the delay that it would cause; to our minds

this is a classic example of delay which is always mentioned in our textbooks. He also mentioned that some lawyers try make use of what we call areglo in dealing with their cases. Despite these malpractices that some lawyers are guilty of he mentioned that not all lawyers are like that, he even said that these would usually be done by those who do not prepare for their cases or those who do not know anything about their cases. At the end of our interview, Atty. Leones was kind enough to give us pieces of advice regarding the field that we have chosen to take. He said that we must always read the news and be critical about the information we get from it. He told us that we should not just concentrate on the readings that our books have to offer, that we must not limit ourselves to the assignments given by our professors, but we must also observe the society we live in and always update ourselves of the status of our surroundings because this outside factor is where we would be applying all that we have learned from law school.

LEGAL COUNSELING
October 30, 2012

Submitted by: Bragado, Cassandra Sanson, Vanna Katrina Sotto, Mikhaella Valenzuela, Melvyn Lorenzo

Submitted to: Atty. Lauren Tanyag