Greenpeace International, 11 December 2015
Victory by Greenpeace Southeast Asia and fellow court petitioners. Photo credit: Greenpeace
Press Release
Manila, 11 December 2015 – The Supreme Court of the Philippines has ordered a permanent ban on field trials of genetically engineered (GE) eggplant and a temporary halt on approving applications for the “contained use, import, commercialisation and propagation” of GE crops, including the import of GE products.
The court ruled in favour of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, as well as several Filipino activists, academics and politicians, in what is a major victory for Filipino farmers and activists around the world.
“This decision builds on a wave of countries in Europe rejecting GE crops, and is a major setback for the GE industry,” said Virginia Benosa-Llorin, Ecological Agriculture Campaigner for Greenpeace Philippines. “The Philippines has been used as a model for GE regulatory policy around the world, but now we are finally making progress to give people a right to choose the food they want to eat and the type of agriculture they want to encourage.
The temporary ban is in place until a new ‘administrative order’ takes effect, and includes the highly controversial ‘Golden’ rice, an experimental project by International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) that is currently back at the laboratory stage due to poor performance.
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