Dura lex, sed lex. The law may be harsh, but it is the law. Another dictum is: Ignorance of the law excuses no one. Sounds good, right?

There are 10,200 laws as of 2026 as well as laws of the Spanish colonial period, Commonwealth acts and presidential decrees which all form part of the law of the land.

Now, are we Filipino citizens supposed to know all of these laws? Granting quite a few of these are laws renaming streets, declaring local or national holidays and other rather trivial use of law-making, there’s still a formidable number of laws that affect us. I must confess I don’t know them all, and thankfully, I’ve navigated through life without violating a major one, so far.

Our laws are enacted in English, which many Filipinos do not have good command of, let alone comprehend their meanings. At the rate, our young ones are affected by intellectual stunting, a third or more will not understand many of these laws.

Laws are published in national circulation newspapers, but how many read broadsheets now? Most people spend time on social media and not a lot of laws are publicized there.

But here’s the catch. We’re supposed to not violate the laws, but if we don’t know such a law exists, how do we avoid violating them?

Case in point. A woman in Cebu City was arrested for growing and selling agarwood seedlings, a tree species that is listed as endangered and strictly regulated. I’m sure the woman was shocked to be arrested and thrown in jail for simply growing trees from seeds. She probably didn’t know about the DENR and permits required to grow trees for sale.

But what is the basic intent of the law? It is to protect plants and animals, particularly critically endangered species, from becoming extinct. She most probably did not cut an agarwood tree to procure the seeds. Rather, she most likely collected seeds, whether it be from the forest, or a cultivated tree in her locality, and seeing a demand for agarwood, decided to sell the seedlings.

Was there harm done by her doing so? Will her growing trees from seeds further push the species into extinction? Big no. She, in fact, was trying to propagate the species in what can be called ex-situ conservation. The latter term refers to growing or culturing plant or animal species in danger of extinction in a non-native setting, away from the forests that are being rapidly denuded by illegal logging and mining, which are the biggest culprits of deforestation, leading to loss of habitat for all the denizens of the forests.

The fact is, the Philippines now only has about 20% forest cover compared to the year 1934, due to human population expansion and farming, in addition to mining and logging.

This calls for protection of the remaining forest cover and reforestation of denuded mountains and plains. But even as we speak, the resources for this do not exist. There are very few forest rangers guarding our forests, and they are threatened, harassed, shot at and possibly killed by poachers and mining and logging companies’ personnel.

Back to our beleaguered woman, rather than confiscating the seedlings and arresting her, wouldn’t it be more productive and favorable to our environment to issue her a warning and ask her to register with the DENR to make her operation legitimate?

As for the seized seedlings, are there facilities that can grow them and then have them planted in the forests? Or are they going to just die in the possession of DENR personnel who may not know how to care for them, like what happens to many seized animal and plant contraband? Or perhaps, they are “recycled” (illicitly sold) by unscrupulous DENR people as what happens with seized illegal drugs?

If we are serious in preserving our natural environment, we must buckle down in really protecting and propagating our endangered plants and animals, including setting up ex-situ conservation sites where we can grow and nurture our valuable natural resources.

The DENR must enlist our people, especially indigenous tribes, in protecting our forests, and allow our countrymen to propagate these commercially valuable plants and animals without fear of arrest and confiscation that does nothing for conservation.

Our people must benefit from our natural resources, rather than other countries that have already acquired our precious plants and animals, as what happened with our endemic orchid species. Hawaii, Thailand and Taiwan are now major orchid exporters thanks to their use of our native species.

Stop penalizing our people for infractions of laws that do not serve the purpose for which they were made for and which many are ignorant of. This is oppression on many levels.