IDIS, MAAS TWITTED FOR BAD SHOW AT SUPREME COURT

The good and the bad bananas

By ROGER M. BALANZA

Two events that hardly caught the attention of the public as the country grappled with the damage of super typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng had bananas at the center.

 

First. Pseudo environmentalist groups battling aerial spraying at the Supreme Court used banana to illustrate the alleged damage of the farm practice in communities near banana plantations particularly in the Davao Region.

 

Second. The Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA), the umbrella group of banana growers, shipped out from Davao to Luzon tons and tons of Cavendish bananas to help feed hungry victims of the calamity.

 

Between the two, who is the bad banana, and the good banana?

 

Let’s take the first and skewer the Interface Development Interventions (IDIS), Mamamayang Ayaw sa Aerial Spraying (MAAS), the pseudo-environmentalist groups behind the lobby to ban aerial spraying in the banana plantations.

 

Last week, IDIS and MAAS went again into their boring routine of dramatizing their cause, parading at the Supreme Court picket a weighing scale with Cavendish bananas on one side and human images on the other. This dramatic presentation purportedly wants to send the message that banana plantations have been killing people through aerial spraying. This is another of the scare tactics employing baseless claims, lies and falsehoods that these fake NGOs (in Davao City, NGOs when referring to IDIS and MAAS is spelled out as No Good Organizations) have been employing since the battle over aerial spraying started three years.

 

While the show was good for media mileage, the IDIS and MAAS argument is nothing but rotten bananas.

 

The banana industry in the Davao Region alone employs about 200,000 direct-hired workers. About 5 million people are engaged in support industries to make the export Cavendish banana industry the Number One Industry in the region. About $400 million is brought in annual export earnings, fueling the economy of the region. The banana industry also is the flagship industry in almost all provinces and municipalities in the Davao Region including Caraga which picked banana growing as the main focus of their One Town One Product (OTOP).

 

And here’s the shocker. Contrary to the lies and falsehood being peddled by IDIS and MAAS and lately by its offspring Task Force Aerial Spraying (which counts members in the capital region who knew nothing about the banana industry and the good it has brought to the people), studies by government agencies showed no one has died nor contracted diseases for exposure to fungicide since aerial spraying was used in the Davao Region about 50 years ago.

 

This is not tall tale but a documented finding of the Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority, the Department of Health in Region Eleven and by a Special Team commissioned by Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte composed of the health, legal and planning departments of the city government. Mind you, these findings have been presented as evidence to rebut the claims of IDIS and MAAS about alleged the threat to health and environment from aerial spraying.

 

And yet the Davao City Council approved the ordinance banning aerial spraying, the only safe and surefire method of fighting off the deadly Sigatoka which in the past ravaged thousands of hectares of banana plantations in other countries. Fungicide used in aerial spraying is a non-toxic anti-pest chemical according to the FPA, also in papers presented to the Davao City Council. If the Davao Region bananas are widely accepted throughout the world, it is because they pass international standards on health and safety. Aerial spraying, administered by personnel under the guidance of FPA and other government agencies, help maintain quality and volume of bananas, reinforcing the stability of the industry as one of the country’s primary export.

 

This is the industry that IDIS and MAAS —a motley group of fake environmentalists making noises to lure foreign donors at the expense of the people of the Davao Region depending on the banana industry—want to kill.

 

As far as we are concerned, the bad banana on the issue of aerial spraying are IDIS and MAAS and the gullible supporters they marshaled into their cartel of liars and fakes to kill Davao Region’s main industry and the people depending on it.   

 

Now let’s take a look at the good banana.

 

PBGEA quickly responded to calls to donate food and other forms of aid to typhoon victims and immediately sent out to the Social Welfare Development two shipments (7,500 boxes of bananas in eight 20-footer and 14 10-footer container vans) of nutritious, export-quality bananas for repacking and distribution to typhoon victims in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.

 

The good bananas behind these humanitarian endeavor were PBGEA members Tagum Agricultural Development Company Inc.,Sumifru, Lapanday Foods, F.S. Dizon and Sons, AM Soriano, Marsman-Drysdale and Unifrutti.

 

The bananas were a welcome change from the usual relief goods being packed and sent to evacuation centers, where many victims supposedly had instant noodles coming out of their ears.

 

Even relief workers benefited from the shipments of the energy-boosting fruit as aid. Bananas consist mainly of sugars and fiber, which makes them ideal for an immediate and prolonged source of energy, as most athletes already know.

 

The DSWD said it distributed the bananas as follows: two 20-footer and five 10-footer vans in the National Capital Region; two 20-footer vans in Pangasinan; three 20-footer and six 10-footer vans in Region 4-A; three 10-footer vans in Region 3; and one 20-footer van to various other evacuation centers. The fresh green bananas were shipped last week for free on board vessels owned by Solid Shipping and Aboitiz Shipping.

 

There were no reports of people being poisoned by the bananas, as they probably would have been if the fruits were saturated in dangerous chemicals as the Davao NGOs claim.

 

Then again, no one has ever complained about poisoning after eating in-demand Philippine-grown bananas or even in the plantations where they are grown before the NGOs came along with a great idea to scam foreign funding agencies.

 

And PBGEA did this without any fanfare.

 

But no one has heard about the anti-spraying NGOs giving anything to the flood victims, either. They were too busy holding rallies and photographing themselves while at it, to get some more money from their clueless donors.

 

While people suffered hunger in the wake of the killer typhoons, IDIS and MAAS and their underlings were at the Supreme Court trying to convince the Justices to stop a farm practice that makes the banana industry alive.

 

People should be wary of IDIS and MAAS. They could bring more nightmares than all the typhoons that visited the country, with their evil intention to kill an industry upon which thousands of people depend on to live.