THE Court of Appeals has reinstated criminal charges against two importers of waste materials from Canada — infamously known as “Canada waste” — that became the subject of a diplomatic row between Ottawa and the Duterte administration.
In a 10-page ruling dated January 31, 2025, the appellate court’s Eighth Division “nullified and set aside” the ruling of Branch 47 of the Manila Regional Trial Court and reinstated the criminal case.
“The trial court is directed to resolve the demurrer to evidence with dispatch, after giving the prosecution the opportunity to file its comment and or opposition to the private respondent’s demurrer to evidence,” said the CA ruling penned by Associate Justice Eleuterio Bathan and concurred with by Associate Justices Florencio Mamauag Jr. and Nina Antonio-Valenzuela.
The prosecution earlier sought the CA’s intervention to nullify the June 20, 2023 order issued by Branch 47 Judge Paulino Gallegos granting the demurrer to evidence filed by respondents Adelfa Eduardo and Leonora Flores, and the August 29, 2023 resolution of Branch 47 Judge John Benedict Medina denying the prosecutors’ motion for reconsideration.
Eduardo and Flores were charged with violation of Sections 3601 and 3601 of the Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines.
The charges were filed by the Bureau of Customs for the “unlawful importation” of 54-footer container vans declared to carry plastic scrap but upon inspection were found to contain used and/or mixed unsorted household garbage, including soiled diapers. The importation also violated Republic Act 6969, also known as the Toxic Substance and Hazardous wastes and Nuclear wastes Control Act of 1990, the bureau said.
After a preliminary investigation, the Department of Justice issued a resolution finding probable cause against Eduardo and Flores.
Formal indictments were also filed by DOJ prosecutors against them before the court.
But the Manila RTC sided with the respondents’ demurrer to evidence, prompting the Office of the Solicitor General, which is representing the State, to elevate the case to the CA.
The OSG held that the RTC committed grave abuse of discretion when it issued the assailed orders, saying the respondents prematurely filed the demurrer to evidence.
It also argued that the RTC committed the same violation when Medina denied the prosecution’s motion for reconsideration.
“Clearly, the act of public respondent Judge Gallegos in prematurely entertaining the private respondent’s demurrer to evidence and without affording the prosecution the opportunity to comment and or to object to the same is a clear and utter disregard of the procedural rules,” the CA said.
The resolution issued by Medina, the CA also said, was “tainted with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.”
‘GRAVE ABUSE OF DISCRETION’
Further, the CA stressed that an acquittal as what happened in the case due to the grant of the demurrer is considered tainted with grave abuse of discretion as it violated the prosecution’s right to due process.
“Here, the OSG has sufficiently discharged the burden of proving that the public respondent Judge Gallegos committed grave abuse of discretion in rendering a verdict of acquittal by granting the demurrer to evidence with utter disregard for the principle of due process and public respondent Judge Medina committed grave abuse of discretion in denying the motion for reconsideration without considering the issues of due process raised by the prosecution in their motion for reconsideration,” the CA further said,
It added that the acquittal of Eduardo and Flores is “null and void” as it was done without regard to due process.
The resulting furor over the importation of the “Canada waste” prompted then President Rodrigo Duterte to threaten to declare war against Canada if the country did not take back tons of trash a Canada-based company had shipped to Manila several years ago.
Duterte also recalled the Philippine ambassador and consul to Ottawa after the Canadian government failed to comply with his deadline to remove the waste materials.
A total of 103 containers holding 2,450 tons of trash were shipped to the Philippines in 2013 and 2014.
Canada is a party to the UN Basel Convention which is designed to reduce transfers of hazardous waste to developing nations without their consent.
After months of diplomatic wrangling, Canada decided to take back the trash in 2019.
