Growth of PHL science set back by SC's GMO ruling, expert warns

Scientific advancement in the Philippines may be set back years if not decades due to the Supreme Court's (SC's) decision to permanently stop testing of Bt crops and other genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the country, a genomics expert warned Wednesday.

The question of Bt crop safety aside, the ruling effectively stunts the Philippines' scientific competitiveness versus other countries by stifling scientific discourse, according to Filipino genomics expert and New York University Dean of Science Dr. Michael Purugganan.

Letting other countries get ahead of us

"In one ruling, the SC just declared that the Philippines should no longer invest in this technology. We have just ceded future agricultural progress to the developed world, China, and other countries. This guarantees we will never be able to develop this technology for ourselves," Purugganan told GMA News.

"We will now have to depend on other countries to provide the technology, because we have prevented our own scientists from working it out," he added.

And contrary to the SC's contention, he says, there is actually an overwhelmingly unanimous amount of scientific evidence underscoring Bt crops' safety.

SC got it wrong: Scientific consensus is in GMO's favor

"Every major national academy in the world has indicated that GMO technology is safe. Bt is actually approved for use as a pesticide in organic farms," he said.

In 2012, independent researchers analyzed close to 2,000 studies—a decade's worth of analysis—from around the world on genetically-modified crops. Their exhaustive study found no credible evidence that GMO's pose any biological harm.

"The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazard directly connected with the use of GM crops," the authors said in their conclusion.

"Our goal was to create a single document where interested people of all levels of expertise can get an overview on what has been done by scientists regarding GE crop safety," lead author Alessandro Nicolia told RCScience. "We tried to give a balanced view informing about what has been debated, the conclusions reached so far, and emerging issues."

This is in stark contrast to the SC's ruling, which claimed a lack of unanimous agreement among scientists worldwide.

"These divergent views reflect the continuing international debate on GMOs and the varying degrees of acceptance of GM technology by states, especially in developed countries," the SC had said.

Out of Pinoys' hands and into MNCs'

But an overarching concern, according to Purugganan, is that the SC ruling has taken the science out of Filipinos' control and into the hands of other countries and multinational companies (MNCs) that may not have the Philippines' best interests in mind.

"The SC's ruling doesn't stop Monsanto scientists or corporate researchers from doing their own work, which they can do esily in the US.  What it does is stop our own scientists at UPLB or at PhilRice or any of our own scientific laboratories from working to develop this technology for ourselves, for our own needs.  We just assured ourselves that big corporations will dominate the use of this technology, because we deprived our own public-sector scientists from working to use it to improve our own crops," he warned. — GMA News