Supreme Court strikes down PEA-Amari reclamation deal in Chavez v PEA

In Chavez v. Public Estates Authority and Amari Coastal Bay Development Corporation, decided July 9, 2002, the Supreme Court En Banc voided the Amended Joint Venture Agreement under which 367.5 hectares of reclaimed and to-be-reclaimed land along Manila Bay had been transferred or committed to Amari, a private corporation. The Court held that Section 3, Article XII of the 1987 Constitution prohibits the transfer of alienable lands of the public domain to private corporations and that the transfer to Amari was therefore void ab initio. The decision was authored by Justice Antonio Carpio. The ruling produced years of follow-on litigation and successive attempts to restructure the arrangement, and became the principal Philippine Supreme Court precedent on the alienability of reclaimed public land.