Scientists hit CA ruling vs Bt eggplant, GMO

MANILA, Philippines — A legal victory for militant group Greenpeace, a regrettable loss for Filipinos.

This was how the country’s respected academicians and agricultural scientists described the Court of Appeals’ April 17 ruling that granted a petition by Greenpeace and its local allies to impose a moratorium on research and development of genetically modified organisms (GMO), and the commercial propagation of Bt eggplant and Golden Rice.

Bt eggplant was genetically engineered to protect the plant from a destructive insect pest. Golden Rice has been fortified with beta carotene to address Vitamin A deficiency in humans.

“The court proceedings that led to this decision are just the latest of very expensive legal struggles initiated by the same group for more than 20 years, not only in the Philippines, to stop the use of modern methods to solve the problems of poverty, hunger and degradation of the environment through plant breeding,” the National Academy of Science and Technology - Agricultural Sciences Division (NAST-ASD) said in a position paper issued last Friday.

“The same issues used by Greenpeace to convince the court were earlier dismissed by the Department of Agriculture and repudiated by 129 Nobel Prize Laureates and millions of farmers,” the NAST agricultural scientists and academicians added.

For them, the court decision amounts to the weaponization of the law to favor an extreme ideology about nature — that a pristine environment must be preserved and modern biological technology is working against this goal.

“This is contrary to our knowledge that nature is characterized by constant change — some of them man-made, but most of the apocalyptic changes were through natural forces. Among these are climate change, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes,” they said. 

Composed of the country’s most respected and awarded scientists and researchers, the NAST, which is under the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), is the country’s highest recognition and scientific advisory body.

“We are alarmed that relatively trivial flaws such as the title of a representative to a local biotechnology regulating body are given undue importance in court deliberations,