BY ROER M. BALANZA
Tag Archives: Davao bananas
Floirendo group to build P2 billion Davao international container terminal
STILL GOING STRONG! Banana magnate Don Antonio Floirendo, Sr., and his Anflocor conglomerate continue to be a major factor in the Davao Region economic development with investments in almost all spheres of business activity, the latest of which is the P2 billion Davao international container project. The business genius and political kingpin is seen here in a huddle with Tagum City Mayor Rey Uy and Tagum Archbishop Wilfredo Manlapaz in a 2009 photo by JimTanNuevo.
NO. 104, Apr 16-22, 2012
BY ROGER M. BALANZA
THE Anflo Management and Investment Corporation and San Vicente Terminal and Brokerage Services Inc. have finalized the P2.1 billion loan facility for the Davao International Container Terminal project.
The two companies sealed the syndicated facility with Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) and Security Bank in a signing ceremony held last April 2 at the Marco Polo Hotel Davao.
Gracing the signing ceremony for the loan facility for Davao International Container Terminal are (seated l-r) Ricardo R. Floirendo, Senior Vice President of ANFLOCOR, Alberto S. Villarosa, President of SB Corporation, Antonio Floirendo, Jr., Vice Chairman of ANFLOCOR, Aurelio R. Montinola III, President of BPI, Vincent R. Floirendo, Vice President of ANFLOCOR, Cecilia L. Tan, President of BPI Capital Corporation, (standing l-r) Luis Martin E. Villalon, Director of SB Capital Investment Corporation, Federico C. Galang III, Executive Director of SB Capital Investment Corporation, Victor Q. Garcia, Vice President of BPI, Loretta G. Mangilit, First Vice President of SB Corporation, Oscar V. Grapa, Chief Financial Officer of ANFLOCOR, and Barbara C. Untalan, Vice President of BPI Capital Corporation.
“We are very glad that Bank of the Philippine Islands and Security Bank believe in this project and welcomed to facilitate the financial requirements of the Davao International Container Terminal,” Anflocor chief financial officer Oscar V. Grapa said.
The deal was arranged by BPI Capital Corporation and SB Capital Investment Corporation.
“BPI sees the immense value of the project to Davao’s economy in being able to create jobs, translate to substantial logistics savings, and to promote the global competitiveness of Davao’s banana export industry,” BPI president Aurelio R. Montinola III said.
THE DURIAN POST NO. 104
SB Corporation president Alberto S. Villarosa also noted the positive impact of the project to the economic growth in the Davao Region.
“We thank the management of Anflocor Group for entrusting the financial part of the project to both BPI and Security Bank,” Villarosa said.
The eight-hectare container terminal aims to support Mindanao’s expanding international banana exports by providing progressive container port services. It will feature modern ship to shore cranes, expansive plug-in facilities and an average draft of 15.5 meters which can accommodate large international vessels.
Davao International Container Terminal is also projected to support the position of the Philippines as the third largest exporter of cavendish bananas in the world, which local industry is concentrated in Mindanao.
Panama Disease killing Davao bananas
Banana growers in the Davao Region are alarmed over the onset of the dreaded Panama Disease, which has already affected several banana plantations.
“It is an industry killer and for Mindanao, an economy killer,” Alex Valoria, president of the Philippine Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA), said of the destructive fungal plant disease.
The fungus, which already attacked several plantations across the region, has been identified as the recent strain Tropical Race 4. Presently, it has no cure and cannot be controlled by fungicide.
Stephen Antig, PBGEA executive-director, said the disease was spotted in Calinan in Davao City about three years ago.
It has spread to banana plantations in Compostela Valley, Davao del Norte and Davao del Sur.
The fungus is carried by humans, dogs, cats, pigs and car tires. Rainwater can also carry the fungus thus, it can spread easily from upland farms to lowland plantations.
Panama Disease destroyed the Malaysian banana industry three years ago.
In Mindanao, there are about 245,000 hectares planted to bananas with 79,300 hectares devoted to export-quality Cavendish varieties.
THE DEADLY BREW – The Durian Post column
THEDURIANBEAT
BY ROGER M. BALANZA
The recent rat attack on farmlands in Paquibato and the assault on coconut trees by worms in Marilog sent us back to the time when aerial spraying in banana plantations was a hotly-contested issue in the city.
The rat attack that ravaged corn and rice fields and fruit crops in Marilog brought out 
actions and suggestions, some sane, some coming out of wards in that old building along J. P. Laurel Avenue that we said should be a proper headquarter for lawyer Elly Pamatong’s Republic of Mindanesia.
Among the sane response was Mayor Inday Sara’s Work for Food program, where farmers work, work we repeat, by running after 300 
rodents, catching them and cutting their tails, and exchanging them for a sack of rice. Vice Mayor Rody suggested mass murder of the four-legged tormentors: buy rat poison. City agri OIC Leo Avila, on leave as Ninja Turtle from his concern for marine turtles in Davao Gulf and also on leave as the Batman caring for giant bats in the caves of Marilog, wants People Power: bayahihan-style all the denizens of Paquibato together would crawl on their knees side by side and catch those goddamned rodents.
The insane has this suggestion: gather all cats in the city and bring them up to Paquibato to feed on the rats.
The wormy army chomping on coconut tree leaves was not much of an issue and died as quick as Avila made another suggestion: get a basin, flashlights or candles; at night, fill up the basin with water, light up the candles or switch on the flashlight; and place them under the coconut trees. The worms would think there is a disco dance down below, would dive from the coconut tree to land on the basin of water—-there to drown and die a watery death!
But back to aerial spraying.
Coconut farmers against aerial spraying have this beef: fungicides used in aerial
spraying led to proliferation of the rhinoceros beetle (bakukang in bisdak) that ravished their coconut trees. Backing up the farmers’ claim was the NGO Interface Development Initiative (IDIS)—the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) calls the group IPIS, bisdak for cockroach—which led the campaign against aerial spraying.
In one of the committee hearings by then city council environment committee chair councilor Arnolfo Ricardo Cabling which tackled the bakukang attack, the predecessor of Ninja Turtle/Batman Avila, then city agri chief Rocelio Tabay—a mean joker outside or inside of a drinking session—admitted an alarming growth in the number of rhinoceros beetles in the coconut farms but demolished the farmers’ claim that fungicides impregnated the insects to cause the overpopulation.
Tabay said the farmers are themselves to blame: farmers leave dead coconut tree trunks and leaves to rut just anywhere allowing the beetles to breed on them. But Tabay is not finger-pointing and has discovered a concoction that could end the farmers’ bakukang woes.
His magic, cheap but deadly home-made brew, according to Tabay, could even spare the farmers the agony of buying expensive imported insecticides.
And what is this Tabay brand of anti-rhinoceros beetle cocktail? A mix of your favorite Tanduay rum, spiced up by a San Miguel Beer Grande or Red Horse, a packet of ordinary detergent and a bagful of hot pepper (sili in bisdak) that grows abundantly in the farms.
INGREDIENTS OF THE TABAY
ANTI-RHINOCEROS BEETLE BREW
He and his team had conducted tests on the mixture and found an outstanding success at wiping out almost all the beetles in one of the ravished coconut farms, according to Tabay, to assure the farmers that he is the agri chief and not some nuts straight out of that old building along J. P. Laurel Avenue we said earlier should be a nice place for a headquarter for lawyer Elly Pamatong’s Republic of Mindanesia.
But, wait, there is a problem, Tabay told the Cabling committee and the farmers attending. The brew is applied using sprayers with extended nozzles attached to long bamboo poles raised up to the level of the coconuts.
As the deadly Tanduay-Beer Grande-Red Horse-detergent-hot pepper brew is sprayed on the coconuts, drops of it by the principle of gravity fall down on his spraying team, who ends up with itchy eyes. Sobrang halanga kuno. Sili god na. He abandoned the idea. My people will go blind! Basig mangabuta! But the method was effective—the bakukangs crawled out of the crevices of the coconut trees—-to die a drunken death!
But all is not lost yet.
Tabay said he would risk ending up a laughing stock or called a nut by city councilors whom he would ask for funding for purchase of gas masks for his team to continue spraying the Tabay cocktail without endangering their eyes with drops of the deadly Tanduay-Beer Grande-Red Horse-detergent-hot pepper brew.
Ninja Turtle/Batman Avila, the city agri OIC, will have no problem when the bakukangs return to ravish coconut trees: Tabay is ready with his deadly brew if city councilors can provide him the gas masks for his team.
PUBLISHED
IN THE DURIAN POST WEEKLY 57TH EDITION
Davao banana industry sees $1-billion annual export
In five years, a top official of a grouping of banana exporters said export earnings could rocket to $1-billion per year.
The growth could spin off into more employment opportunities in the industry, said Stephen Antig, executive director of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA).
Antig spoke of his projections during the hearing of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food chaired by Senator Francis Pangilinan.
“All it takes is the same passion, hard work, resourcefulness and commitment to the protocols of a science-based and precision agriculture which built the industry the past forty-four years,” Antig told the committee.
The growth is starting now, said Antig, citing the forty-four percent increade in shipments due to the steady increase in the population and income of its main markets, East Asia and the Middle East.
The hearing focused on the serious decline in the shipments of Philippine bananas to Iran due to an economic embargo imposed by the United States against said country.
Tadeco goes organic
The Davao Region’s pioneering and top banana exporter is going organic as part of its commitment to sustainable agriculture.
Tagum Agricultural Development Company, Inc. (Tadeco), of the Anflo Group of Companies of Don Antonio O. Floirendo, has launched its vermiculture project to produce its own steady vermicast supply as its attempts to intensify its non-based chemical fertilizers as a means to achieving sustainable agricultur, said Alexis P. Cantil, vice president for agriculture operation of Tadeco. Vermicasts are the end-product of vermiculture, the artificial cultivation of worms.
“With the project, we could also cut our expenses for the expensive vermicasts which costs P400 per bag,” Cantil said. He said Tadeco has earmarked five percent of its 6,500-hectare farms to sustainable agriculture.
Tadeco started advocating organic farming three years ago, which upped production to 5,000 boxes per hectare from 4,000 boxes 10 years ago, said Dr. Benny M. Corcolon, vice president for Research Information Compliance Division of Tadeco.
Organic agriculture resulted in positive gains for the banana firm and considering the good impact of non-chemical based fertilizers we will soon increase use of organic agricultural practices as a way of attaining sustainable agriculture, he said.
Smear campaign vs. Davao bananas slammed
By ROGER M. BALANZA
The banana industry has scored an environmental activist for using Japanese media to call for a boycott by Japanese of Davao bananas.
According to a coalition of banana farm cooperatives in the Davao Region, Lia Esquillo-Villarin, of Interface Development Interventions (IDIS) has “bad manners and was grossly anti-Filipino” for calling on the Japanese consumers to boycott Davao Region;s major dollar earning industry.
Esquillo-Villarin in a report by Kyodo News Agency was also quoted as saying that “Philippine banana companies are only after profit” and urged the Japanese to write banana grower and importer Sumifru to abandon aerial spraying she alleges as threats to public health and the environment. Aerial spraying however is approved by the government.
Idis is in the forefront of opposition to aerial spraying in banana plantations in the Davao Region.
Ceferino Buquia, chair of the Checkered Farms Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Cooperative said that Esquillo-Villarin insulted Philippine political and social institutions with her display of crab-mentality.”
Industry sources however say that they are not bothered at all by Esquillo-Villarin’s antics as “the Philippine export banana industry strictly adheres to all the protocols of ensuring the quality and safety of bananas and at the same time protecting people’s health and the environment established by the Japanese Ministry of Health. Labour and Welfare.”
One of the leading companies, UNIFRUTTI, is also affiliated with Rainforest Alliance which actively promotes environmental protection while others are ISO-certified which means that they follow good agricultural practices.
“We gain nothing by bickering over issues of health and the environment that have been resolved,” said PBGEA President Stephen A. Antig.
PBGEA bares scholars
Eighteen students, fifteen of them high school and three in college, have been awarded scholarship grants by the Banana Export Industry Foundation (BEIF).
“They are all freshmen, are sons and daughters of growers or workers in the export banana industry with a net taxable annual income of not more than P200,000 and enrolled in various schools in the Davao Region, Socsargen, Caraga and in the provinces of Bukidnon and North Cotabato,” said Ms. Betty Francia, PBGEA-BEIF Executive Assistant.
Francia said that the high school scholars were picked from 59 applicants nominated by member-companies of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) after passing tests administered by the privately-run Center for Educational Measurement while the college freshmen came from the ranks of the foundation’s high school scholars who recently graduated and also topped the qualifying tests.
The topnotchers in the high school category, Kamhel Joyce Polino of St. Mary’s College of Kidapawan and Kaye Lynor Love V. Pinsoy of the Alabel National Science High School were awarded P30,000 for tuition and other fees plus a monthly stipend of P500. Both got a rating of 99+% in the qualifying tests.
The scholarship program was established some-time in the early 80’s and that the foundation’s “cream of the crop” includes the ertswhile president of the National Power Corporation Guido Delgado, Atty. Gil Garcia of the Social Security System, Director Bliss Lantayona of the Department of Trade and Industry-Region 4 and Rev. Fr. Paterno Labasano of Hawaii.
AERIAL SPRAY ISSUE DRIVING BANANA COMPANIES TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES
“We are looking for a place where we are welcome”
By ROGER M. BALANZA
The Davao Region economy, and other banana-growing regions in Southern and Central Mindanao, could end up as rotten as rotten bananas if banana companies pack their bananas and bring them to other countries.
This troubling scenario was revealed here by an industry player as the Davao Region’s major product is threatened with a looming government ban on aerial spraying.
Most of large growers here are multi-national corporations who could reel from poor quality and low volume of export Cavendish bananas if the ban is imposed on aerial spraying which fights off the crippling deadly leaf disease sigatoka.
Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) president Stephen Antig earlier had intimated the same scenario of an economic disaster while a proposal banning aerial spraying was being deliberated by the City Council in Davao City. An ordinance passed by the body is now subject of a case at the Supreme Court, after being thumbed down as unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) reportedly is set to issue an order banning the practice.
An official of a multi-national company under the umbrella of the PBGEA said the looming ban on aerial spraying is pushing them to relocate to Sri Lanka, Indonesia or Vietnam. The official, who begged anonymity, said two other companies are eyeing Australia or Papua New Guinea.
If the companies pack up, the Davao Region would face up to the reality of seeing 200,000 people going jobless and loss of about $400 million in annual export earnings. Antig earlier said about half-a-million jobs in allied industries are linked to the banana industry.
We are now looking for places where we are welcome, said the official.
In preparation for the worst-case scenario of the ban on aerial spraying being imposed permanently, several companies are already into site exploration or in process of testing models in other countries, said the official whose company is one of the biggest in the Davao Region.
AERIAL SPRAY CRITICS STEP UP DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN
myviews
Duque should look into irresponsible reporting on aerial spray
By ROGER M. BALANZA
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III should take time out from other pressing health concerns to look into how critics of aerial spraying in banana plantations are using underhanded tactics to misinform the public.
In Davao City, the center of information of banana-growing Davao Region, a daily newspaper, Sunstar Davao, has published in its November 6, 2009 issue an old decision by the DOH executive committee declaring the practice as “hazardous to humans.”
Made to appear as a final verdict by DOH on the fate of aerial spraying, the decision—based on a DOH study which wanted to totally ban aerial spraying—was handed out in August 24, 2009.
The timing of the publication is suspect. It came barely a week after a report in the Philippine Daily Inquirer about the World Health Organization (WHO), and another no less in Sunstar Davao, saying the study upon which DOH based its decision was “inadequate” and “in conclusive.”
It appears that the publication was intended to present the DOH decision as the latest event on the fate of aerial spraying.
Sunstar Davao reporter Jade C. Zaldivar, a neophyte in the field, should be wary about being taken for a ride by critics of the banana industry feeding her with misinformation.
It could dbe that an operative from the media bureau of Interface Development Interventions (IDIS), the noisiest NGO hereabouts against aerial spraying, provided her with the August 24, 2009 DOH decision, which has been discredited by WHO after conducting a peer review on the study in Davao del Sur alleging hazards posed by aerial spraying on humans.
There are only a few monkeys—among them IDIS and its clone Mamamayang Ayaw sa Aeiral Spraying (MAAS) and the National Task Force Against Aerial Spraying, composed of a bunch of idiots who do not know anything about bananas—trying to kill the Davao Region export Cavendish banana industry that earns more than $400 million in annual export earnings and employing hundreds of thousand of people. Ms. Zaldivar would not want to be a monkey herself by allowing her profession to be used as a tool of misinformation, would she?
Secretary Duque pronto should pronto make a rejoinder on the Sunstar Davao report where he is pictured as another monkey out to kill the banana industry. If he doesn’t, then Secretary Duque is.
Anyway, read on:
SUNSTAR DAVAO, November 6, 2009
Aerial spraying is hazardous: DOH
By Jade C. Zaldivar
Cub Reporter
RESULTS of a Department of Health (DOH) study said aerial spraying is hazardous to humans.
An official statement from DOH contained the decision of the DOH executive committee in their meeting last August 24 that approved and adopted the recommendations of the study done in 2006 by the DOH/Philippine Society Clinical Occupational Toxicology Inc./UP-National Poison Management and Control Center.
The statement was signed by DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III, undersecretaries Alexander Padilla, David Lozada Jr., Mario Villaverde, and assistant secretaries Nemesio Gako, Lydia Fernandez, Elmer Punzalan, and Paulyn Jean Ubial.
The recommendations urged the Department of Agriculture to stop “aerial spraying.”
Other recommendations include:
(a) The industry establish a health surveillance system to detect effects of chronic pesticide exposure in communities adjacent to the banana and other agricultural plantations. Include more detailed neurodevelopmental assessment of children, follow up of previously diagnosed conditions, screening for sentinel conditions, periodic screening of biomarkers and allocate the necessary funds. The DOH as regulatory agency will validate findings.
(b) Based on the Philippine Environmental Impact System (PD 1586), the industry shall perform systematic and periodic monitoring of pesticide residues and metabolites in the environment of communities adjacent to banana and other agricultural plantations and do remediation where necessary. The responsible agencies shall provide oversight function.
(c) Government and industry should develop and strengthen guidelines for protecting communities from pesticide contamination in plantations.
(d) Acute and chronic pesticide exposures can result in harm to both health and environment; hence, a shift to organic farming techniques should be considered.
(e) Given the results generated by the joint DOH-PSCOT-NPMCC study, and in the light of the precautionary principle espoused by the Rio Declaration of which the Philippines is a signatory, we urge the Department of Agriculture that aerial spraying must be stopped until proof of its safety is clearly established by the industry.
The said recommendations are grounded on previous accounts on the matter, specifically:
(1) The technical review commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the health effects attributed to pesticide exposure and spray drift;
(2) The voluminous evidence shown that fungicides such as mancozeb and chlorothalonil cause acute health effects and chronic effects to workers and communities living near plantations;
(3) That drift is unavoidable whenever pesticides are applied;
(4) Aerial spraying has been banned in certain countries because of concerns on drift and its potential effects.
(5) The Food and Agriculture Organization’s Guidelines on Good Practice for Aerial Application of Pesticides stipulates that ?risk management measures should be implemented and enforced in order to minimize the risk of harm to health and the environment from aerial application of pesticides and also includes guideline to alternative pesticide use such as natural and applied control measures?; and
(6) In an official communication to (Duque), the WHO Philippine Office cited significant comments from the experts? technical review indicating ?support for surveillance, environmental monitoring, banning of aerial spraying, and further epidemiological study on health effects of pesticides usage. It was also cited that aerial application of pesticides have shown to mostly reach non-target sites and communities.?
SUNSTAR DAVAO, November 5, 2009
PBGEA welcomes WHO stance on DOH study
By Carlo P. Mallo
Reporter
PILIPINO Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) president Stephen Antig yesterday welcomed reports the peer review conducted by the World Health Organization has tagged the Department of Health sponsored study in a plantation village in Davao del Sur as “inadequate” and “inconclusive”.
“We are happy but we have yet to receive the official and complete results of the peer review conducted by the WHO,” Antig told Sun.Star Davao yesterday at the PBGEA office.
National newspapers carried reports that WHO officials, who conducted the peer review on the highly disputed Camocaan study, were not convinced by the study, which said that the study was an insufficient basis to call for the banning of aerial spraying.
The disputed study was conducted by the Department of Health and some organizations who have called for the banning of aerial spraying in the sleepy sitio of Camocaan in Hagonoy town, Davao del Sur. The study, released last May, recommended a stop to aerial spraying as an agricultural practice, among others.
Late September, WHO stopped the Philippine government from taking any action against aerial spraying pending the international body’s review.
WHO officials asked the government to shelve any action on the ban being pushed by environment advocates until it completes reviewing the disputed Camocaan study, which claims that residue from pesticide spraying was detected in villagers’ blood, in the air, and soil samples.
The WHO stepped into the controversial aerial spraying of agrichemicals, amid allegations of rigging in a study purportedly showing that pesticide contamination has breached the boundaries of agricultural plantations.
Senate and House
At the moment, two bills seeking the nationwide ban on aerial spraying of pesticides, authored by Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and Senator Miguel Zubiri who hails from Mindanao, are anchored on similar studies — all connecting the aerial application of agrichemicals to various illnesses allegedly suffered by residents near agricultural areas.
“Once and for all, the study on Camocaan will be resolved and finally put to rest,” Antig said.
The banana umbrella group has accused those involved in the study of “strong bias against pesticide” and of using environmental samples of questionable integrity and fabricated illnesses among residents.
PHILIPPINE DAILY INQURER, November 1, 2009
Banana growers get WHO reprieveBy Daxim Lucas
Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO) has reportedly found as “inconclusive” a controversial study that became the basis for the banning of aerial spraying of fungicides on banana plantations in Davao City.
Because of this, key players in the banana industry believe that efforts to have the ban lifted by the courts—as well as their fight against Congress’ moves seeking to prohibit the practice—have now received a boost from an impartial scientific organization.
“According to the WHO, the supposed evidence against aerial spraying was insufficient and inconclusive,” said one industry official privy to the results of the international body’s review. “Basically, they said the facts did not support claims that the practice [or aerial spraying] causes health problems.”
The WHO made this assertion last week during a teleconference from its offices in Geneva, Switzerland with Philippine government officials, including representatives from the Department of Health and the Department of Agriculture.
The official, who declined to be named, because he was not authorized to speak about the closed-door teleconference said the WHO was expected to transmit an official copy of its findings to local officials soon.
“This puts a big hole in the case against aerial spraying,” he said.
The local banana industry is one of the country’s top agricultural export earners having exported $780 million worth of fruits to the international market—primarily Japan, the Middle East and the United States – last year.
The development was welcomed by the head of the Philippine Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA). The group earlier expressed apprehension about the negative effects any ban would have on the dollar-earning industry.
“This is a good development for us,” said PBGEA president Stephen Antig. “Hopefully, we can now correct all this wrong information going around about aerial spraying.”
In an interview, Antig pointed out that the substance being used to protect banana plantations from the “sigatoka” fungal infestation was a mild “fungicide,” and not a toxic “pesticide” as claimed by environmentalists.
He said the fungicides were completely biodegradable and approved for use by the agriculture department’s Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority as well as by the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Antig welcomed the WHO’s findings, saying that the industry association had always said that the disputed study – conducted in the 1990s in the municipality of Camocaan in Davao del Sur – had little scientific basis.
October 19, 2009, WHO Manila Office
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
an update on the recent video conference with the experts from the World Health Organization. Here’s the summary of the report.
• The meeting was attended by members of the IACEH (Usec. Villaverde, Yolanda Oliveros, Dr. Nelia Maramba, Dr. Irma Macalinao, the Dionisio Team, Dr. Norlito Gicana, Ms. Aida Ordas, Ms. Angie Brabante (DENR)
• Dr Soe Nyunt-U, WHO Representative to the Philippines, presided the meeting.
• The WHO experts who conducted the peer review on the “Health and Environmental Assessment of Sitio Camocaan in Hagonoy, Davao del Sur” were Dr. David Coggon (UK) and Dr. Brian Priestly (Australia)
• According to the experts, the said study by the team of Dr. Allan Dionisio is “INADEQUATE, INCONCLUSIVE; IT HAS LOOPHOLES; THE DATA IS LIMITED”. Therefore, its conclusion (to ban aerial spray) is not supported by adequate data.
• The proponents of the study, particularly Dr. Lynn Panganiban, insisted that Aerial Spraying should be stopped. However, the experts reiterated that based on the document/data given to them, the conclusion to ban aerial spraying is not supported by adequate data.
• It was suggested that in the light of this development, a joint study should be conducted by the government (DOH, DA, DENR, FPA) and the banana industry. The issue on funding said joint study would require money.
• It was observed that Dr. Soe Nyunt-U was very objective and did not allow himself to be swayed by the different reactions from the members.
• The recommendation on the aerial spray issue will be taken up in the next IACEH meeting.
