The Battle against GMOs in the Philippines: Confronting the WTO’s Attempts to Destabilize Sustainable Agriculture
The Philippines has become a GMO battlefield, with the small farmers and organic farming advocates on one hand and the Philippine government with pro-GMO scientists on the other hand. The Philippine government is showing its cooptation to the neoliberal agenda of transnational biotechnology corporations and the World Trade Organization which protects TNCs’ interests in its approval of the importation of 60 genetically modified plants and plant products for direct use as food and feed or for processing, an additional eight GM plant varieties for propagation, and 21 modified plant varieties for field testing in Philippine soil.
Alarmingly, despite concerns about BT corn’s impact on the environment, it now has 750,000 hectares of Philippine land devoted to it. According to Greenpeace Southeast Asia spokesman Daniel Ocampo, no GMO application has ever been rejected, which is very shocking and alarming given the controversy over their use. This makes the Philippines the country in Southeast Asia having the most number of genetically modified (GMO) crops approved by the government for human consumption, animal feed, propagation, and field trial, according to Greenpeace (InterAksyon.com, 2012).
Most of the approved GMOs are genetically altered corn, soybean, potato, sugar beet, canola, and alfalfa. The purpose of the genetic alteration is for these crops to resist pests and herbicide, delay ripening, and enhance their nutritional value. The one that gained the most attention and the greatest resistance was the field testing of golden rice, genetically modified rice artificially inserted with genes from a bacteria and corn to produce beta carotene, a precursor of Vitamin A. In August 2013, around 400 farmers stormed the field testing area of golden rice in Pili, Camarines Sur and uprooted the genetically modified golden rice. The farmers, members of the anti-GMO alliance SIKWAL-GMO, “contended that far from benefitting farmers, Golden Rice will contaminate native rice crops and pose risks to public health and the environment” (Ranada, 2013).
