If Filipinos are worried about modified foods, say officers of the Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines, then it’s way too late. That’s because since birth we’ve been nourished on a diet rich in patis, toyo, bagoong, buro, taho, tokwa, not to mention cheese, wine, bread and other foods that have undergone some form of modification. Dr. Saturnina Halos, the coalition’s research director, says food modification is ”the use of living materials to produce or change food,” such as the use of fermentation to change salted fish into patis, soy beans into toyo or soy sauce, or milk to cheese.