Cultivation of genetically modified eggplants--perceived to be dangerous for human consumption--will be put on hold after the Supreme Court issued a writ of kalikasan in favor of petitioners led by environment group Greenpeace. Details of the writ issued last Friday however were kept private by Greenpeace while the High Court has yet to post the resolution on its website. “As per advice of our lawyer, we cannot share the copy with the media. Basically, the writ is for respondents to justify the field trials. I cannot go into the details for now,” Daniel Ocampo, sustainable agriculture campaigner of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said in a text message to Sun.Star.

Top Filipino scientists have urged the Supreme Court to junk a petition filed by environmental groups against the field testing of genetically modified eggplant in the country. Emil Javier, president of the National Academy of Science and Technology and former president of the University of the Philippines, said “Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) eggplant is potentially the best environmentally friendly technology for eggplant production.” [...] He argued that the filing of the petition “is not in the national interest, and the academy, together with UP and the mainstream, reputable scientists from the local and global community strongly support agricultural biotechnology.”

Public officials and environmental group Greenpeace asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to stop the field testing of genetically modified eggplant, a variety they said can cause damage to human health and natural vegetation. Specifically, the petitioners which also include Puerto Princesa City Mayor Edward Hagedorn and Bayan Muna party-list Representative Teodoro Casiño asked the Court to issue a writ of kalikasan, which is a legal remedy to address environmental concerns. [...] The Philippines has a recorded 500 varieties of eggplant and related species. With its built-in insect-resistance gene, Bt eggplant poses risks of creating aggressive weeds that may wreak havoc to local agriculture and natural habitats, said Daniel Ocampo, sustainable agriculture campaigner of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

Greenpeace released today a report ”confirming the dangers” of cultivating genetically-modified organisms. The report, which focuses on Bt eggplant, a GMO variety currently being field-tested in the Philippines, details how the spread of the genetically-modified Bt gene can cause eggplant to be an ”aggressive and problematic weed, threatening to overpower similar varieties.” In addition, Greenpeace maintains that GMOs grown in fields contaminate normal crops, threaten farmers’ livelihoods, and are dangerous to human health.

ASIDE from the safety of food with genetically modified organisms, Greenpeace said on Thursday that the ownership of these food makers should also be a cause for concern about GMOs. “GMOs are patented and owned by the companies that develop, produce, and market them as quick-fix solutions to hunger and poverty. After more than 20 years of commercialization, GMOs have only brought us farther from [our] food security goals,” said Greenpeace in a briefing paper. The group continues to question the safety of GMOs as well as the process being implemented by the Philippine government for GMOs.

ASIAN corn borer (Ostrinia furnacalis) that destroys ordinary corn crops in the Philippines remain susceptible to or die when they eat the insect-resistant genetically modified Bacillus thuringiensis corn. This was the result of a study made by a team of scientists, led by Dr. Edwin Alcantara of the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of the Philippines Los Baños, Laguna. Members of the team are Drs. Arnold Estrada and Victor Alpuerto of Monsanto Philippines Inc., and Graham Head of Monsanto Llc. in the United States. “So far, no field-evolved ACB resistance has been detected after almost 10 years of Bt corn adoption,” Searca Biotech Information Center said in a press release.

Five more biotechnology products being developed by local research institutions are expected to be commercially released soon. The genetically modified crops — Golden Rice, Bt cotton, Bt eggplant, Bt camote, and Bt abaca — are in various stages of research, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotechnology Applications reported at the recent 2012 seminar on biotechnology held at Hyatt Hotel in Manila.

Field trial of the genetically modified eggplant in Cotabato province has finally taken off last week. Dr. Lourdes D. Taylo, an entomologist from the University of the Philippines in Los Baños-Institute of Plant Breeding, confirmed that Bacillus thuringiensis eggplant, or Bt Talong, has been planted at a trial site at the University of Southern Mindanao in Kabacan, Cotabato province. “The field trial would run for about three months,” she told BusinessWorld, thumbing down “possible contamination of conventional eggplants since the Bt Talong test site has been isolated.

“While the local Organic Agriculture Ordinance explicitly said that organic crops cannot coexist with genetically modified crops, we still need to protect our agricultural biodiversity from future attempts to plant GMO crops in the city,” Tina Delima of the group Sustainable Integrated Area Development Initiatives in Mindanao-Convergence for Asset Reform and Regional Development, said of the proposed ordinance. Under the proposed ordinance, now the subject of public consultations being conducted by the city council, the mere entry of GMOs was to be outlawed.

Clive James, founder and chairman of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, said last week that “biotech crops have the potential to make a substantial contribution to the 2015 MDGs of cutting poverty in half, by optimizing crop productivity, which can be expedited by public-private sector partnerships, such as the drought tolerant maize for Africa supported by philanthropic entities such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.” He said the achievement of MDGs goes hand-in-hand with advances in the cultivation of GM crops and noted that by 2015, there will be an increase of about 10 countries adopting biotech crops. The first biotech-based drought tolerant corn is planned for release in North America in 2013 and in Africa by 2017, he said.