THE battleground for a protracted war heats up as Department of Agriculture stood firm in its decision to allow science-based assessment and experiments of any genetically modified crop in the country despite vehement opposition by environmental groups—particularly Greenpeace. [...] Greenpeace has been urging Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala to scrap the experiments and field trials of Bt eggplants, arguing that the tests were being conducted only to determine the propriety of cultivating the vegetable under Philippine soil conditions and not to find out if it is safe for humans. [...] But two leading biotechnologists of the DA said that Greenpeace has exceeded its bounds by demanding that government scrap all field trials for Bt eggplant and imposing its thinking on 100 million Filipinos that any GM crop is “evil” and “subverts nature.”