The Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) has closed a small jewelry shop for allegedly polluting the Laguna de Bay. But the same small firm was later found to be innocent of the charge.

A multinational mining company was barred from continuing its mining activities when ordered by a court. It was found later that the case had nothing to do with environment laws.

Environment laws have either been abused, misused by regulators or was simply applied out of ignorance of the spirit of the law, victimizing Philippine companies, the big as well as the small.

This was the conclusion made by Dr. Edgardo Alabastro of the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) after he presented 10 case studies of actual instances when local companies suffered in the application of old and new environmental laws.

The presentation was made during an FPI-sponsored legal forum on environment laws held recently at the Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan.

The classic example was that of a small jewelry shop in New Manila, Quezon City owned by Mia Faustmann, president of the Guild of Philippine Jewellers, which was padlocked by the LLDA for pollution charges.

Located several kilometers away from the lake and without any known effluent, the shop of 7 Castles Inc., was stopped from operating under dubious circumstances. Faustmann, during the forum, said that she and her husband had to fight long legal battles before her shop was allowed to resume operations.

She further charged that environmental laws are often used to harass companies, even those that are exempted by the law from securing environmental clearance certificates.

Small enterprises with minimal waste products are exempted from getting the environmental clearance certificate under the law.

It was further revealed during the conference that regulators have been expanding and interpreting the coverage of the law beyond its original scope. Cited as example was a recent memorandum order issued by the Environment Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) requiring all restaurants to secure environment clearances.

The new regulation has elicited protests from restaurant operators, particularly the fast-food chains.

Alabastro said that as a result of the forum, FPI is formulating a position paper and resolution that the business groups agreed to hand-carry to DENR Secretary Jose Atienza to help address many nagging environmental issues.