SC suspends GMO use pending new DA regulations

By Vince Alvic A. F. Nonato, Reporter | Posted on December 08, 2015 09:35:00 PM

THE SUPREME COURT (SC) has “temporarily” halted the use and importation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), pending the Agriculture department’s issuance of new rules that better comply with the law and safety standards.

This follows the nullification by the high court sitting en banc of the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) Administrative Order (DAO) No. 08-2002, the rules regulating the use of GMOs, for being insufficient in guaranteeing compliance with international biosafety standards.

These directives expanded the Court of Appeals’ May 2013 decision to permanently stop the field testing of Bt talong, a genetically-modified eggplant, which the SC affirmed in a unanimous ruling yesterday.

Apart from upholding the 2013 ruling against the Bt talongfield trials, SC Public Information Office Chief Theodore O. Te said the high court also struck down DAO 08-2002 as invalid.

“Any application for the contained use, testing, propagation, commercialization and importation of genetically modified organisms is temporarily enjoined until a new administrative order is promulgated in accordance with law,” Mr. Te quoted the ruling as saying.

The high court said DAO 08-2002 should have accounted for international biosafety protocols as laid down by the 2006 executive order creating the National Biosafety Framework (NBF).

The NBF, the court noted, mandated a more transparent and participatory public consultation process.

“The failure of DAO 08-2002 to accommodate the NBF means that the DA lacks the mechanisms to mandate applicants to comply with international biosafety protocols,” the court said. “DAO 08-2002 should be declared invalid.”

The applicants for the GM eggplant trials — including the University of the Philippines, the University of the Philippines Los Baños Foundation, Inc., and the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, Inc. (ISAAA) — were able to follow only DAO 08-2002, the court found.

It said there was “no real effort… to operationalize the principles of the NBF in the conduct of field testing of Bt talong.”

The SC applied the “precautionary principle” in this case, citing the “lack of scientific certainty” on GMO safety in ruling to protect the environment against the “possibility of irreversible [and] serious harm.”

This agreed with the CA’s decision that found the overall safety guarantee of Bt talonginsufficient and ruled against further trials “amid the uncertainties.”

“When these features — uncertainty, the possibility of irreversible harm, and the possibility of serious harm-coincide, the case for the precautionary principle is strongest,” the court said.

In the absence of scientific certainty, the court shifted the burden of evidence “away from those likely to suffer harm and onto those desiring to change the status quo.”

Since safety could not be guaranteed, the court said cases like these “must be resolved in favor of the constitutional right to a balanced and healthful ecology.”

But the court said that for purposes of evidence, the precautionary principle should be treated as a “principle of last resort.”

In this case, the court applied the principle because current research worldwide “indicates that the biotech industry has not sufficiently addressed the uncertainties over the safety of GM foods and crops.”

The case stemmed from a writ of kalikasan petition filed by Greenpeace Southeast Asia (Philippines), farmers’ group Magsasaka at Siyentipikio sa Pagpapaunlad ng Agrikultura, and individuals including former politicians Teodoro A. Casiño and Edward S. Hagedorn, and scientist Dr. Ben S. Malayang III.

As of press time, Greenpeace Philippines is preparing a statement. Meanwhile, ISAAA could not be immediately reached by phone.

Bt talong is engineered with genes from Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacterium acting as a biological pesticide, to make the crop resistant against damaging insects, especially the fruit and shoot borers.

Field testing of GM eggplant was conducted in Laguna, Pangasinan, Camarines Sur and Cotabato.

The ISAAA, in a 2013 brief, said the GM eggplant will “minimize, if not totally eliminate, insecticide applications…,” lessening water pollution and reducing harm to non-pest organisms.

When the Court of Appeals stopped the Bt talong trials in 2013, the Joint Foreign Chambers of the Philippines called for the government to continue the development of GM crops as a “sustainable and cost-efficient” answer to food shortage and malnutrition.

Source: www.bworldonline.com