EDITORIAL - Judicial review not always the right solution

The question on whether or not to shut down the Inayawan dumpsite in Cebu City has reached an impasse and has now been elevated to the higher courts for review and resolution. But submitting executive functions to judicial resolution may not always appropriately address the questions that needed to be resolved in the first place. Remember, the courts can only rule on legality but not on, say, practicality.

For example, the court can rule that the Inayawan dumpsite must be shut down promptly on account of, say, some gross violations of applicable laws. Now that may satisfy some of the legal questions involved in the controversy, which formed the basis for the recommendation by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to shut it down.

But that will not answer the other questions that prompted the reluctance to comply with the DENR order and kept the dumpsite open. One such question is where the tons of daily garbage will go if a shutdown order is issued and promptly complied with. If the law is strictly to be followed, which is how it should be in a civilized and orderly society, then the dump must close.

But here is where "closing one door opens another" can get real tricky-because when you close the dump, you will need to find another place to throw your garbage, which Cebu City simply does not have. And, as everybody knows, a place to dispose of garbage is one requirement that every civilized and orderly society just cannot do without.

It is perhaps this quandary that has prompted all the parties to the controversy to run to the courts to let it solve a problem they themselves cannot solve. But as said at the outset, the courts can only rule on the legalities involved in the question and cannot be expected to rule on the real meat of the problem with a wisdom they simply do not have.

The problem with the executive branch of government, to where this nagging issue truly belongs, is that it is shot through with politics. More often than not, it is politics that makes simple problems complicated-complicated problems to be solved by other branches of government, such as the judiciary, in this case, or the legislative, where some pseudo environmentalists seek legislation to solve an issue as complicated as flooding.

The Inayawan dumpsite is an example of a simple matter gone complicated. Disposing of garbage is a normal function of the executive. It is not something that requires specialization in some esoteric field of study. But one has to have foresight, such as planning some 30 years back for the eventuality that is Inayawan today. Without such planning, we are where we are today. And because the simple problem has become complicated, we toss it to someone else's yard, just like, well, garbage.