World Bank slammed for urging shift in local agri

The environmental nongovernment organization Interface Development Inteventions, Inc. (Idis) has slammed a World Bank recommendation for the Philippines to devote its budget for agriculture on export-oriented crops.

 Lia Jasmin Esquillo, executive director of Idis, said that World Bank wanted the millions of farmers in the country to get stuck to the pit of hunger and poverty with this kind of recommendation.

“The idea that Filipino farmers must plant exportable crops has always been proven as destructive to the economic backbone of the country which is agriculture and threatens the capacity of the farmers to conduct their activities sustainably—meaning really beneficial to them and friendly to the environment,” Esquillo said. 

“Let us be reminded that only the capitalists and their cohorts were able to benefit when rice, corn, coconut and other indigenous crop farmers shifted to planting pineapples, Cavendish bananas, and crops that are export oriented…Let us not be deceived by these sugar coated analysis because we have the best weapon to counter them and that’s experience,” Esquillo added. 

This came when Maryse Gautier, country director of World Bank for the Philippines, said that the rest of the developing world, the farming sector of the Philippines, which accounts to 40 percent of the country’s workforce, must be placed at the center of the development agenda. 

Gautier said that the way to increase the benefits of agricultural public investments in the Philippines “would be to improve the composition of expenditure, without necessarily increasing its level.

“The country would be able to seize new opportunities presented by the global markets by shifting expenditures towards supporting dynamic, high-value added products with export potential. This, she said, will help increase incomes from agriculture, where “more than 40
percent of the Philippine labor force is employed, but which (now)
contributes only about 14 percent of national output.”  

But Esquillo said that instead of focusing on crops with export potentials, the Philippine government must first and foremost ensure food self sufficiency and give its full support and assistant to farmers who continue to plant corn, rice and other crops that assure the country’s food security. She added that even the United Nations have recognized the potential of organic agriculture to remedy the global problem of hunger, hence the support must be poured on local organic agriculture movements. 

“It is appalling to hear someone encourage Filipinos to supply food to other countries when many Filipinos are suffering from hunger and poverty because of lack of food. While we recognize the potential of the country to host agricultural farms, these farms must foremost serve the interest of the Filipino people and not other any other country’s interest,” Esquillo said. 

Esquillo said that right now, thousands of lands in the countryside have been given up to plantations that generally threaten the supply of food for local consumption. She said that farmers who have been swayed into converting their farms into plantations have already been experiencing the ugliness of the trade with their debts piling up, making recovery almost impossible to reach.  

“We have already seen how producing food for other countries like the United States and Japan have made our local farmers suffer almost irrevocable damages…let us put an end to this kind of scheme that only impairs the Filipinos capacity to agricultural self-reliance,” Esquillo said.  

Environmentalists to celebrate with “lumad” in Tipolog

Environmentalists are yet again scaling up Mt. Tipolog , known as the country’s lost volcano found in Barangay Tawan-Tawan, Baguio District, as their way of celebrating the generosity of the mountain to the residents of the area especially to the lumad (indigenous peoples).

This is in time for the celebration of October as the Indigenous People’s Month.

Jumar Bolo, senior organizer of the group Kinaiyahan Amomahon, Ubanan ug Bantayan (Kauban), said their climb on October 5-7 is hoped to generate more awareness of the importance of Mt. Tipolog as the primary source of livelihood of the lumad while at the same time pushing for its protecting against aggressive forms of developments.

Mt. Tipolog is identified as a high groundwater recharge area by Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). It is a major contributor to the Dumoy aquifers and is part of the headwater for the Panigan-Tamugan River , Davao ’s future source of drinking water.

With an elevation of 1,340 meter (4,396 feet) above sea level, Mt. Tipolog is roughly one-third the height of Mt. Apo , the country’s highest mountain. Mt. Tipolog , however, is a lot older than Mt. Apo according to the DENR.

“The abundance of Mt. Tipolog has been helping the lumad in terms of livelihood and agriculture and knowing this, the people there are aware that the mountain must be protected against intrusions that will only mean destruction on the natural landscape and the resources that feed them,” Bolo said.

“It is important for the public to know about this especially with the looming entry of certain developments that will only in the end cause the destruction of the mountain,” Bolo said.

He was referring to reports about the supposed plan of a local businesswoman to apply for a community integrated forest management agreement (CIFMA) for a portion of Mt. Tipolog . This is in the face of the pending application of the lumad tillers of the area for a community-based forest management agreement (CBFMA).

Bolo said the situation of the lumad in Mindanao today could very well tell of their experience as groups of people abused and oppressed in the past.

“Our lumad brothers and sisters are now suffering because of the greediness of some people over the wealth of the mountains and the forests. We know how the lumad were dislocated from their ancestral lands because of developments that only benefited a few people,” Bolo said.

Past climbs in Mt. Tipolog exposed environmentalists to the traces of intensive logging operations in the area as evidenced by bald slopes and large logging roads.

“As people living in the lowlands, we believe and fully support the efforts of the lumad living at the foot of Mt. Tipolog to develop the area according to their culture and tradition. We will climb Tipolog as a way of protesting against efforts of few people to milk money from the environment while the lumad are left out in poverty,” Bolo said.

Maas to PBGEA: Accept the inevitable

The Mamamayan Ayaw sa Aerial Spraying has advised the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association to tear off its arrogance and accept the inevitable, the banning of aerial spraying in banana plantations in Davao .

The unsolicited advice came following the insistence of the PBGEA that the city ordinance banning aerial spraying is unconstitutional, a case which was recently trashed by the court in a decision that upheld its validity. Because of their failure to prove their case in the lower court, the aggrupation of banana companies said they will elevate this to the Court of Appeals.

“Please give the people of Davao a favor. Give up this fight and for once show that a small part of you is willing to practice your corporate social responsibility. Respecting the city government who passed the ordinance and the lower court who ruled against your case is your only chance to show that there’s another part of you other than being greedy and arrogant,” said Jun Alcomendras, a councilor of Barangay Wangan in Calinan District.

Alcomendras, one of those who joined the coalition of Maas , said the decision of Judge Renato Fuentes of the Regional Trial Court branch 17 articulated well the failure of the banana plantations to prove their case. This decision, he said, should serve as a wake-up call for PBGEA to admit that aerial spraying as a chemical application practice poses danger to the environment and the health of the people.

“Enough of all these denials. This is the best time to admit that aerial spraying is hazardous and therefore must be banned. Stop denying yourself and the public of the truth that you have lost the battle and will lose even if you will bring it up to the higher court. If it is corporate pride that backs up your insistence, the people with confront this with our implacable strength all the way through as we have shown in the past,” Alcomendras said.

Lia Jasmin Esquillo, executive director of the nongovernment organization Interface Development Interventions, Inc. (Idis), one of the groups who backed the banning of aerial spraying, said the ruling handed down by Fuentes have clearly fueled the resolve of the people who, by all indications, will never back-off in this fight.

“The favorable ruling has all the more strengthened the resolve of the people even as PBGEA remains in complete denial. The people who have been exposed to aerial spraying all these years are all the more unbending this time,” Esquillo said.

Esquillo said that community mechanisms are now in place to monitor possible violations of banana plantations of the ordinance that became effective with the decision of Fuentes that came a day before the expiration of the preliminary injunction he himself granted the PBGEA to temporarily stop the implementation of the ordinance.

Alcomendras said they will be closely watching over the banana plantations and will immediately report to the authorities any company plane that sprays their bananas.

“All members of Maas are as ready as before…we will not hesitate to report any violations to the city government,” Alcomendras said.

The city legal office has already said that the city government will file appropriate charges against the plantations if they will violate the ordinance.

Court upholds constitutionality of aerial spraying ordinance

The Regional Trial Court Branch 17 has declared constitutional and valid the city ordinance that sought to ban aerial spraying in banana plantations, a decision that shutdown the battle of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) against the city government and the people who campaigned strongly for its end.

In a decision dated Sept. 22, Presiding Judge Renato Fuentes even lauded the decision of the city government to pass the ordinance and stressed how the witnesses of PBGEA failed to support the contention that the ordinance banning aerial spraying was unconstitutional.

“What is found by the court through their (petitioner) witnesses are not impressive to provide merit of credibility but on the contrary… general observations and obscure presentation of their respective testimony, not convincing to establish the fact on issue,” Fuentes wrote in the 37-page decision.

“The details of the testimonies of witnesses for petitioner furnish (sic) major inconsistencies as to destroy all probable aspect of what is there to accept in their testimonies,” he added.

Surprisingly, the testimony of PBGEA’s Briton expert witness, Richard Billington, not only failed to convince the court that there was nothing to worry about aerial spraying, but also turned out to have “made the most boomerang reaction to the petitioner.”

“When confronted with the label of the fungicide Dithane, he admitted that his company, Dow AgroSciences European Development Center , has warned the public users of its dangerous effects to the health of human being with a disclaimer of responsibility of the company in case any untoward incident resulting in the adverse effect of said fungicide (sic),” Fuentes said.

Dow AgroSciences is the manufacturer of the Dithane, a chemical used against sigatoka but is known to cause cancer in animals tested in the laboratories.

“His admission of the dangerous effect of fungicide in itself is enough to put the public to be aware of the said immediate danger poised by the particular fungicide,” added Fuentes, who stressed that the disclaimer of Dow, the manufacturer of the chemical being used in aerial spraying, was patent admission of the chemical’s adverse effect to the people.

The court, meanwhile, expressed high appreciation to the testimony of the city government’s witness Dr. Lynn Crisanta Panganiban “on the merit of her exposition, theories and studies of fungicide reflected in her excellent qualification as a doctor of medicine and a pharmacologist… along with her renowned qualification as a toxicologist by clearly putting into understandable presentation her thesis that all fungicide are poisonous and (pose) outright danger to the health and safety of human beings and the surrounding environment.”

In upholding the constitutionality of the ordinance, Fuentes said that the city government “mainly anchored and invoked the inherent power of the government supported and expressly provided in the time honored general welfare clause of the Local Government Code of 1991.”

Fuentes said that the city government only practiced its police power when it approved the ordinance into law. He explained police power as the state’s power to prescribe regulations, promote health, morals, education, good orders, and safety for the general welfare of the people.

“The exercise of police power is productive of a constitutional principle of social justice,” Fuentes said citing section 15, article II of the 1987 Philippine Constitution that states: “The state shall provide social justice in all forces of national development, along with said declaration, the state shall protect and provide the right to health of the people and instill health consciousness among them.”

Fuentes also cited the infamous Oposa vs. Factoran case where the Supreme Court made a landmark environmental decision when it ruled for the protection and safeguard of the environment for the improvement and shared inheritance of the youth of the country.

“After a very extensive review and careful evaluation of the voluminous records submitted, arguments and complicated positions from the parties, the court cannot sustain the theory and position of the petitioners in assailing the validity and constitutionality of the subject City Ordinance,” Fuentes said.

After careful scrutiny of the evidence and the testimonies, Fuentes said that the court cannot find any objection to the validity and constitutionality of the ordinance questioned by the PBGEA.

“There is indeed not only a necessity but a strong demand of urgency for the passing of said city ordinance in keeping with the stringent obligations of the government to answer the call of the people in accordance with the invoked general welfare clause of the public,” he said.

Fuentes also pointed out that the reasonableness of the ordinance is beyond question.

“In the greater extent for consideration, the court arrived to affirm and sustain the validity and constitutionality of the subject ordinance not only on the basis purely of legality but as already stated true indeed…there are questionable factual matters in the presentation of the witnesses of the petitioners that preponderate the evidence,” Fuentes said.

“What is paramount for upholding the validity and constitutionality of the subject city ordinance is the presumption that it is valid and constitutional and such presumption will remain unless certain basic principles will prove to be repugnant and contrary to the specific provision of the constitution and law,” he added.

The implementation of the ordinance which supposedly took effect last June 23 hit a snag when PBGEA questioned its constitutionality to the court.

Fuentes, on the other hand, issued a writ of preliminary injunction to temporarily stop the implementation for three more months and conducted marathon hearings for the main case. The preliminary injunction expired yesterday.

Atienza appointment reflects GMA’s disrespect to environment

The environmental coalition Panaghoy sa Kinaiyahan-Coalition for Mother Earth or Panaghoy yesterday said the appointment of former Manila Mayor Lito Atienza as the head of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) exposes the Arroyo government’s disrespect to the importance of the environment.

Ajim Inni, of the Alternate Forum for Research in Mindanao (Afrim), a member organization of Panaghoy, said the Arroyo administration is a government fast becoming notorious for being insensitive of the call of the time and propriety just so to accommodate political allies at the expense of vital policies and agencies like the DENR.

“We see this is as a desperate act of political accommodation. What have become of this government that everyone appointed into office are those who do not have the appropriate credentials and background and nothing but unquestionable loyalty to the administration?” Inni said.

Inni cited how former Defense Sec. Angelo Reyes was also appointed as head of the DENR after his retirement from the military service. Michael Defensor, whose only background on environment only came after his appointment as the environmental secretary, was also a staunch ally of the President.

“Can’t this government for once select someone to head DENR whose background fits well to the position and can perform and deliver the demands of environmental protection in the face of various threats confronting the environment? Don’t we have anybody else in whom we can put our full confidence and trust that she or he will be working on policies that are not against the environment?” Inni said.

Over the years, he said, the country’s forests and other forms of natural resources have been subjected to aggressive developments brought by various orders like DENR administrative order 30-2003, an order seen as a time-clock that gave companies the liberty to operate their projects, despite their possible hazards to environment critical areas, if the DENR fails to hand down its decision within 180 days.

The order shortened the processes, set to supposedly ensure the protection of the environment, that any company has to undergo before a project is allowed. The order also put out the consultative process where people are supposedly asked about any possible opposition to a certain development in their area. It also did not require agricultural companies to secure environmental compliance certificate (ECC) in areas less than 100 hectares, even if the project has an apparent environmental impact.

“Orders like this are biased to companies which are known for being environmentally destructive. This worse we can get with people at the DENR who, in essence, do not have the heart for environment and its protection. When Reyes also sat as the head of DENR, the unfair and destructive order of Defensor came in full-swing, inviting more and more foreign mining corporations and agricultural companies to invest in the country,” Inni said.

With Atienza as the new head of DENR, Inni said, things could even go worst, especially because the former Manila Mayor was known for its environmental offenses in Manila , particularly when he ordered the cutting down of trees in the Arroceros Forest Park.

“The Filipino people deserve better and well-qualified people to lead them and we hope that the President will consider this as she will also realize that the condition of the environment is so alarming already that agencies like DENR must be composed of the correct people,” he said.

Farmers block banana expansion in Gumalang

A group of farmers from the Barangay Gumalang in Baguio District are opposing the expansion of the transnational banana company Dole-Stanfilco in their village because of the project’s proximity to a school and their respective properties.

Ramona Manalili, said they have already signified their opposition against the planned expansion of the banana plantation because they are afraid of the effects of the chemicals used by the plantations to their health and the environment.

The property set to be developed by Dole-Stanfilco, which is owned by the De Lara family, is just few meters away from the Gumalang National High School and adjacent to the properties of at least 30 families.

Manalili said the sentiments of the people in the village, especially those who will be directly affected, should be heard and given primordial importance.

“We have a right to health and a healthy environment. Their right to the use of their property should be subservient to the right of the general public,” she said.

According to Manalili, the company has promised to the Gumalang Barangay Officials that a 500-meter bufferzone will be set-up between the plantation and the school, something that was quickly doubted by the residents knowing that the school is only about 350 away from the proposed plantation development site.

And while the company proposed a bufferzone, the Dole-Stanfilco failed to consider in their plan the putting up of a bufferzone between their project and the properties of the residents like Manalili.

“Ug protektahan nila ang eskwelahan, kinahanglan pud nga maproteksyonan ang mga mag-uuma nga anaa nagpuyo sikbit sa ilang buhaton nga plantasyon,” Manalili said.

“Karon, nagabantay-bantay gyud mi ug maayo kay basig makalitan na lang mi naa na diay sila. Babagan man gyud namo ang ilang pagsulod kay nakabalo mi wala man gyud silay natuman sa ilang mga saad…mubutang kuno sila ug bufferzone? Kinsa man ang ilang ginaatik?” she added.

She said that the promise to put up a bufferzone is just a come-on ploy of the company. But previous experience in areas where banana plantations exists could very well show how banana plantations disregard bufferzones, said the 65-year old farmer.

Another farmer, Arnold Magbanua, who signed the petition blocking the expansion of the Dole-Stanfilco project, said they are hopeful that the government officials in their village will favor them over an oppressive project that will put their lives and their crops in danger.

“Unsaon na lang among tubig niini? Kabalo man kita nga ug naa may ikahatag nga maayo ang plantasyon, dili kini magdugay…unta makita sa atong opisyal ang ugma nga ug atong isalig niining mga plantasyon, mupaingon lang gyud sa wala ug kadaot,” said the father of four very young children.

“Ayaw ingna nga ug mag-expand sila, dili maapektuhan kay dili gyud kana tinuod. ..Hinuod, wala man hinun mi nawad-an ug paglaom nga madunggan mi sa atong panggamhanan,” he added.

Last month, another proposed expansion of Dole-Stanfilco in the nearby village of Malagos was also stopped because of the complaints of the surrounding communities. The said proposed expansion lies next to a forested area protected for being a wildlife conservation zone. The said area was owned by the Philippine Eagle Foundation.

Dads asked: Where’s your environmental agenda?

The environmental mountaineering group Kinaiyahan Amumahon Ubanan ug Bantayan (Kauban) Movement are asking the members of the city council for their environmental agenda, saying only a few of the councilors have so far indicated in their legislative priorities the concern for the environment.

Jumar Bolo, chair of the Kauban, said that during the campaign period, all politicians became self-confessed environmentalists, showing how they were supposedly concerned and alarmed over the state of the environment, its degradation ad the threats confronting it.

But what is eventually becoming another alarming thing, Bolo said, is that everything said about taking care of the environment and making it as one of their priorities will only boil down to nothing but lip service.

“Unta dili lang hangtod sa estorya ang ilang pagkakita ug kabalaka sa nagkadaut nga kinaiyahan ug saad nga mupanday sila ug mga balaud nga nagtinguha nga maproteksyonan ang kinaiyahan. Sa among bahin isip usa ka grupo sa kabatan-unan, kami nagahulat nga makita sa konkretong mga butang ang ilang mga saad. Apan asa na man ang ilang agenda alang sa kinaiyahan karon?” Bolo said.

Kauban, a loose group of mountaineers advocating for the responsible mountaineering, is part of the coalition that launched the Green Vote 2007 during the elections. Green Vote 2007 was a campaign that pushed to make environment an election issue.

During a number of forums, candidates were invited and allowed to present their environmental agenda. They were also asked to sign a covenant with the people that they will prioritize environment in their legislative work.

At least 14 council candidates signed the covenant and eight of them won. They were councilors Angela Librado-Trinidad, Pilar Braga, Leo Avila, Mabel Acosta, Condrado Baluran, Arnulfo Cabling, Danilo Dayanghirang and Diosdado Mahipus. Davao ’s third district Rep. Isidro Ungab also signed in the same covenant.

The issues indicated in the covenant are the implementation of the Water Code of 2001, implementation of the Clean Water Act or Republic Act 9275, passage of Coastal Resource Management Ordinance, passage of rainwater harvesting ordinance, implementation of the Watershed Code of 2007, support for organic farmers and organic agriculture, implementation of vegetative bufferzones around plantations.

Also to be given priority as stated in the covenant are the protection of the city’s forest land, relocation of residents in hazard prone areas, implementation of the ordinance banning aerial spraying, passage of environment code of Davao, and the passage of an ordinance limiting the use of plastic bags in markets and shopping malls.

Bolo said admitted that they are optimistic with some of those who were in the list but aired that there are also those who cannot be counted on when it comes to environment concern.

“Dako man ang among paglaum nga ilang tumanon ang ilang saad apan unta dili na nila dugayon samtang anaa pay panahon. Unta mabatian na namo karon dayon samtang anaa pay panahon,” Bolo said.

Bolo said that the environmental community, which are implementing a number of advocacy programs and other projects meant to prevent the further degradation of the environment, are willing to work with the government just to arrest the problematic environment.

TB cases in plantations a tip of an iceberg says expert

The country’s top toxicologist said the number of sick employees of banana plantations in Makilala, North Cotabato was just the tip of an iceberg of more and more disease, much worse than tuberculosis, which could have inflected not only the employees but also their children and the people living close to the banana plantations.

Dr. Romeo Quijano, considered as one of the most distinguished toxicologists of the country and known for his anti-chemical use advocacy worldwide, said there could be more to tuberculosis among the people exposed to toxic chemicals used in banana plantations knowing the extent of the chemical usage in these plantations and the lack of necessary protective masks and suits for the workers.

He said that employees were found to have been inflected with tuberculosis is an indication of the alarming deterioration of the immune system of the plantation workers.

“Their exposure to these deadly chemicals weakened their immune system and because of this, they are susceptible to many kinds of diseases, including tuberculosis,” Quijano said.

And because the employees’ immune systems have already been weakened by the toxic properties of these synthetic chemicals, the Tuberculosis-causing bacteria Tubercle Bacillus easily inflects them, according to Quijano.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to know more cases of tuberculosis among the employees because tuberculosis remains to be one of the common diseases in the country. But are you not wondering that despite our exposures to people with tuberculosis, we don’t have tuberculosis? That’s because our immune systems are not yet weak,” Quijano said.

A report said that at least 10 field workers of the banana giant Dole-Stanfilco in the town of Makilala have been found out suffering from tuberculosis as confirmed by Juanita Santos, chief nurse of the Kidapawan City Health Office.

In the same report, Santos said that the disease could have been brought by the employee’s overexposure to the chemicals used in the banana plantations.

Quijano said that an avalanche of different kinds of diseases related to chemical exposure might follow the discovery of the tuberculosis cases, the worse form of which is cancer.

He warned that people living inside and close to the banana plantations of Makilala must watch out for other symptoms of diseases related to chemical exposure which include skin diseases, thyroid enlargement among women, reproductive system failure, blindness, respiratory diseases, asthma, poor brain development among children, blindness and parkinson’s disease.

Early symptoms of the effect of the chemicals acute toxicity include irritability, nausea, vomiting, dizziness and loss of consciousness.

Quijano also reiterated his earlier warning that the next worse form of mass destruction could be brought by the use of deadly synthetic chemicals.

DAVCO pays residents’ damaged properties, crops

What appeared as the unyielding refusal of the Floirendo-owned Davao Agricultural Ventures Corp. (Davco) to face the long-overdue demands of the residents of Tawan-Tawan in Baguio District has finally ended when the company agreed to pay for the damaged crops and properties of the residents.

Even then, the payment, which is construed as an apparent admission of the company’s negligence and guilt, is being questioned by the claimants who only received half of what they have been demanding for three years already.

Maximina Acquiatan, one of the claimants whose actual damages claim is placed at P20,410 only received P11,000. Rogelio Cirunay, whose claim reached P45,809 only received P22,000. Another claimant, Dolores Aprong, was only given 3,000 for her P5,840 claim while Josephine Suguilon only received P12,000 for her P24,980 claim.

Acquiatan said she was particularly forced to accept half of her actual claim afraid that she might not at all receive any amount from the pineapple company who shut its door on her constant appeals for three years since her crops and some properties were washed-out by a flood which was blamed on the operations of company in the village.

“Ang ako untang desisyon nga dili ko mudawat ug katunga lang man sa akong ginapangayo nila ang ilang ihatag. Giusa-usa mi nila ug estorya. Gisultian ko nga kung dili ko mudawat, didto na lang daw mi magkita ug mag-estorya sa City Engineers Office,” Acquiatan said.

Aprong admitted that she was saddened by the amount she got as payment from Davco.

And despite the payment, she said, the problem of flood in their village remains because the company has not yet implemented its comprehensive drainage plan which was indicated in their environment compliance certificate (ECC).

“Naguol ko kay gamay ra gyud ang ginabayad nila nako. Gani, nagpadayon ang akong kabalaka nga mosamot ang pagbaha sa among area…Ang ilang bayad dili seguridad nga ang pagbaha ug pagkadaut sa among mga pananom ug uban pang kabtangn maundang na,” Aprong said.

They claimed to have been told that half of their claim will be shouldered by banana-giant Dole that also operates in the village.

The six residents who received the payment also questioned why they were not given copies of the document they signed as proof of the payment which was facilitated by Nelson Umblero, Davco administrative manager.

“Ang sulti sa amo ni Umblero nga kinahanglan pa daw nga mapapirmahan sa abogado kadtong among gipirmahan,” Acquiatan said.

Before the payment was done, the claimants had to stage a number pressure tactics, one of those was to storm Davco’s main office in Damosa. All these came as previous negotiations failed because of Davco’s resistance to listen to the plea of the residents of Tawan-Tawan.

Still being demanded by the residents of Tawan-Tawan, aided by the barangay council, is for the company to implement their comprehensive drainage plan to arrest the problem of flooding in the village.

The residents are also clamoring for the setting up of bufferzones in the company’s pineapple planations.

Court asked to reconsider decision on aerial spraying ban

Two motions asking the court to reconsider its decision that granted the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association of its appeal for an issuance of a writ of Preliminary Injunction that stopped the implementation of the ordinance banning aerial spraying have been separately filed.

The motions for reconsideration were filed by the City Legal Office, the main respondent of the case filed by PBGEA, and the group who intervened in the case. These came when Judge Renato Fuentes of the Regional Trial Court Branch 17 ordered last June 20 the granting of a writ of preliminary injunction for three months.

The Fuentes decision extended for three more months the period given by the city council before the ordinance banning aerial spraying can be fully implemented. The ordinance was signed into law in February and was supposed to be implemented last June 23.

Signed by lawyer Enrique Bonocan of the City Legal Office, the motion contested that the three months phase-out period provided by the ordinance before its implementation was unreasonable was not proven.

The intervenors motion, signed by their lawyers from the Sentro ng Alternatibong Lingap Panligan (Saligan) Mindanao, on the other hand, contested that the court “erred in issuing its order…since in actions questioning the constitutionality of an ordinance, petitioners must have at least shown a strong case to overcome the presumption of validity in the court’s mind, which petitioners failed to do as ruled by this court,” the motion said.

That the PBGEA and its member organizations—Davao Fruits Corporations and Lapanday Agricultural and Development Corporations—failed to prove that the questioned three months phase-out period was unreasonable was even ironically articulated by one their own witnesses, Maria Victoria Sembrano.

“As a matter of fact, witness for petitioners in the person of Maria Victoria Sembrano, a certified public accountant, testified and admitted in open court that manual spraying is one of the methods used in spraying fungicides in bananas other than aerial; and that manual method of spraying can be resorted to anytime,” the motion said.

This was supported by a series of questions asked by Chief Legal Officer Melchor Quitain to Sembrano who was made to admit that manual spraying can actually be done anytime, even today.

“With the admission by the said witness, petitioners’ claim that to shift from aerial spraing to some other modes of applying fungicides within three months is physically impossible is obviously misleading, highly implausible and glaringly nugatory,” the motion stated.

“Petitioners themselves admitted, as shown by the quoted declarations of witness Sembrano that they can actually avail of manual spraying, in lieu of the aerial method, at anytime. Such being the case, it perforce follows that the ordinance is actually not unreasonable, neither oppressive, nor confiscatory,” it added.

And because of this, the motion said, the court, “with due respect, erred in holding that the three months period within which to shift to some other modes of applying fungicides as mandated by the ordinance banning aerial spraying is unreasonable.”

The intervenors motions also said that the court failed to appreciate that the case is not an ordinary injunction case where a banana industry seeks to protect its investment from a peeling loss of multi-million dollar industry, but a case involving an ordinance protecting the lives of people.

The intevenors said that the court erred many times on is resolution.

“First, it was (a) mistake to have indicated that petitioners has a vested right in embarking into a vast multifarious investment, such right being merely a properly right which can be subverted by police power of the state,” it said.

“Second, it has not clearly indicated what substantial right and interest the petitioner have to be protected as it was merely in anticipation. Certainly, not its property rights which was failed to be substantiated during the preliminary injunction hearing. Finally, the court failed to indicate in its order what was established by the petitioners during the hearings to validate its issuance of preliminary injunction,” it added.

In its decision, the court said that “there is a need to grant the writ of preliminary injunction prayed by the petitioners, anticipating a certainty of grave and irreparable damage and injuries the petitioners will suffer if the remedy is not granted, to ensure the protection of substantial right and interest if petitioner, recognizing its vested right in embarking into a vast multifarious investment.”