E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly 30 of 40 http://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/65160 will also serve as buffer zones. Cutting of trees shall be avoided as much as possible. Dust generated during construction stage may affect the nearby vegetation temporarily. Dust that usually settles on leaf surface results in the blocking of stomates. The stomates are pores in the epidermis of leaves. They are channels of gas exchange which is important for the physiological processes. If dust will be left uncontrolled during construction stage, it may result to the blocking of stomates and eventually to the disruption [of] normal physiological processes of the plants. In line with the project's principal objective to be environmentally responsive, all activities from construction to implementation should prioritize preservation and improvement on all aspects of the existing natural environment particularly trees, vegetation and other landscape features. Good vegetation practices and sound soil management programs shall be observed whenever practicable. Therefore, only when it is absolutely necessary shall vegetated land be cleared.[153] Hence, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources required private respondents to obtain a separate environmental compliance certificate for the cutting or earth-balling of the affected Benguet pine and Alnus trees. This was to ascertain that the removal or replanting of the trees would not lead to a significant negative environmental impact. While this Court acknowledges and lauds private respondents efforts[154] to plant a considerable amount of pine seedlings in and around Baguio City, it cannot make up for the removal or replanting of the trees affected by the Expansion Project, which was patently illegal. It does not escape this Court's attention that both the Regional Trial Court and the Court of Appeals missed private respondents' application for the cutting of 182 trees—in addition to 112 already allowed in the earlier Environmental Compliance Certificate—merely through an amended Environmental Compliance Certificate and almost nine (9) years after the original had been used. This Court also notes the lower court's nonchalant attitude when it failed to notice the Department of Environment and Natural Resources failure to distinguish indigenous long-standing pine trees from those recently planted when it issued the amended Environmental Compliance Certificate despite the existence of Executive Order No. 23. This Court has, time and again, considered that the words in Article 11, Section 16 of the Constitution are not mere shibboleths: 4/23/2020, 10:52 AM