Philippines: Greenpeace exposes regulatory capture in GMO assessment process

Manila, 2 October 2007–Multinational agri-biotech companies have
captured the process governing the approval and regulation of
genetically-modified organisms (GMOs ) in the country, beginning with
concerned agencies of the Department of Agriculture, Greenpeace revealed
in a press conference today.

In a new report entitled “Ties that bind: regulatory capture in the
country’s GMO approval process,” Greenpeace details how almost all key
personalities involved in regulating the entry of GMOs in the
Philippines are members of pro-GMO lobby groups funded directly or
indirectly by multinational GMO corporations, or have been involved in
research projects and GMO-promotion activities sponsored by GMO lobby
groups or directly by GMO manufacturers.

“The entire regulatory system for GMOs in our country is obscene. The
regulatory bodies are blatantly in bed with applicant corporations. How
can the regulatory system then claim even an ounce of credibility?” said
Greenpeace Southeast Asia Genetic Engineering Campaigner Daniel Ocampo.
“The convergence of corporate and narrow personal interests in the
regulatory process is very telling and shows how vulnerable our experts
are to corporate largesse perhaps in support of their research academic
pursuits.”

During the past few years, Greenpeace has noted with growing alarm how
the regulatory bodies for GMO crops have never rejected an application
of a GMO from any of the giant agri-biotech corporation despite
documented cases on questions of their safety and rejection by other
countries, even by countries where they were developed.

“Now the public knows why: The DA and its GMO regulatory bodies prefer
to look after the interests of multinational corporations, instead of
rightfully exercising bias in favor of farmer interests and public
health and safety as they are mandated to do,” said Ocampo.

The report names the members of the National Committee on Biosafety of
the Philippines (NCBP), the DA’s Biotech Core Team (BCT) and Bureau of
Plant Industry (BPI), and the so-called independent Scientific and
Technical Review Panel (STRP) and provides a selection of the research
and undertakings of said experts. All the above agencies are in charge
of assessing the safety of GMOs which seek approval in the country.

The same agencies, however, are peopled with scientists and
professionals whose ties with GMO corporations and lobby groups cannot
be denied. According to the report, around 80 percent of the members of
the STRP, (the regulatory agency whose conclusions carry the most weight
on GMO assessments) have worked, or currently work with institutions
that partner with multinational GMO corporations in the research and
promotion of GMO products. Some have worked directly with multinational
agri-biotech companies. And even the president of the Biotechnology
Coalition of the Philippines (BCP), an aggressively pro-GMO lobby group,
is a member of the supposedly “independent” panel.

The report also notes that the regulatory system for GMOs under the DA
allows for conflicts of interest mostly in favor of the company or the
scientist applying for a permit. Nothing in the pertinent laws
(Executive Order 430 or Administrative Order specifies what
constitutes the “independence” of its members or officers.

“In this respect, the Department of Agriculture is a failure. The system
it established to protect the public health and the environment is, on
the contrary, protecting the interests of multinational GMO corporations
in their quest for new markets and profit above all. The regulatory
process is nothing more than a means by which a small group of
scientists and government bureaucrats conspire to help multinational
agricultural corporations and big interest groups to gain a further and
firmer foothold in Philippine agriculture, by bringing in, with very
little regard for public safety, their GMO crops, products, and
technology,” said Ocampo.

Please visit www.greenpeace.org.ph for a copy of the report.

For more information:
Daniel Ocampo, GE campaigner, +63 917 897 6416
Lea Guerrero, Media Campaigner, +63 2 434 7034 loc 121, +63 916 374 4969

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