Mayor Calida says Camocaan folk feel vindicated by rejection by peer reviews of DOH-funded health study in their sitio.Mayor Maximo Estela of Sto. Tomas, Davao del Norte is opposed to a move to ban the practice of aerial spraying in banana plantation, claiming it is the only effective way of stopping the deadly sigatoka disease that has wiped out infested banana farms here and in other countries in recent years.Estela, a practising doctor of medicine, bared his stand on aerial spraying when asked to comment on the issue by broadcaster Timujin “Tek” Ocampo of GMA Testigo during the Kapehan sa Dabaw media forum at SM City Davao recently.He said 10,000 hectares, or close to 20 percent of the 52,000-hectare land area of Sto. Tomas, are planted to export Cavendish bananas.Estela claimed that in the more than three decades that he has practiced medicine and served in the local government of the municipality and the province of Davao del Norte, he has not known of anybody complaining of getting sick due to exposure to aerial spraying.“If they stop aerial spraying, which is the only way sigatoka can be checked, the banana industry will be destroyed,” he said.“Mas dangerous ang manual spraying because the person spraying will be directly hit by whatever chemical he is spraying,” he said, adding that at any rate, the chemical used in aerial spraying is a fungicide, not insecticide.Estela thus joined several mayors of towns and city who are objecting to the move to ban aerial spraying in banana plantations that their localities are hosting.Earlier, Mayor Rey T. Uy of Tagum City , Mayor Jose Silvosa of Panabo City , Mayor Cesar Colina of Maragusan in Compostela Valley Province and Mayor Frank M. Calida of Hagonoy, Davao del Sur, whose areas host banana plantations, said they were against the ban-aerial spraying movement allegedly being initiated by foreign-funded non-government organizations.At the same time, Mayor Calida said that Hagonoy officials and concerned citizens feel vindicated that two peer reviews done on the so-called Camocaan health and environment assessment in 2006 found the study to be defective and insufficient to become the basis of banning the four-decade old practice of aerial spraying.Calida said Camocaan residents, who have been pictured as a poisoned and dying community due to effects of aerial spraying, are happy that the findings of a study-funded by the Department of Health are found to be either untrue or insufficient in the peer reviews. Calida was referring to the peer reviews done by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the scientific community in the University of the Philippines . However, the DOH headed by Secretary Francisco Duque III has yet to make full disclosure of the peer reviews.The 11-man team of health investigators coming from the Philippine Society of Clinical and Occupational Toxicology and the UP Manila-based National Poison Management and Control Center are mostly opposed to the disclosure of the peer reviews on the Camocaan study reportedly due to their grave implications on the team’s ethical behavior and competence as health researchers.Earlier, Anthony B. Sasin, spokesman of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA), branded the Camocaan study as “rigged.” |
Filed under: Davao bananas, aerial spray, davao city, pbgea | Tagged: aerial spraying, ANOTHONY SASSIN, davao city, pbgea
