Commentary on Wikileaks: Leaked State Department Cable Reveals Vatican, Philippine Church Concerns over Economically Exploitative Potentials of Genetically Modified Organisms

By Chanda Shahani

Groups that oppose biotech or genetic engineering research and its implementation in the Philippines have a powerful ally in the Vatican and the Philippine Catholic Church, a leaked cable from the United States State Department but released by Wikileaks shows.

The leaked cable was dated August 26, 2005 but made available by Wikileaks at several of its sites on December 21, 2010 including this numbered mirror site: http://213.251.145.96/cable/2005/08/05VATICAN514.html

Surprisingly, the Vatican and the Philippine Catholic Church do not oppose biotech or genetic engineering on the grounds of creation theory which holds that only God has the right to manipulate life in order to create variants of life forms. Neither are they opposed to genetic engineering on grounds of safety issues, the cable said.

The World Health Organization defines genetically modified (GM) organisms and food crops as "organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally. The technology is often called “modern biotechnology” or “gene technology”, sometimes also “recombinant DNA technology” or “genetic engineering”. It allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one organism into another, also between non-related species.Such methods are used to create GM plants – which are then used to grow GM food crops (http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/biotech/20questions/en/).

The Vatican and several Philippine Catholic laypeople and clergy are concerned, however about the global food industry structure which allows the creation of GM foods and cash crops which end up displacing the economic interests of subsistence farmers.

The leaked cable pepared by Peter Martin, a political officer of the State Department referred to meetings held at the Vatican  between Michael Hall, Biotechnology Advisor of USAID Regional Economic Development Services Office in Nairobi who met with Monsignor James Reinert of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and Jack Bobo, Deputy Chief EB/TTP/ABT/BTT who met with Father Michael Osborn of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.Cor Unum is the Vatican's clearinghouse for aid efforts worldwide, including food aid.

Father Osborn said that the Holy See did not feel that the genetic modification of plants posed any moral problem. Within the mainstream Vatican, he said, the mainstream opinion is that the science is solid. Bobo also informed Osborn about recent studies such as a World Health Organization (WHO) report that said that GM foods currently available on the market have passed risk assessments and are not at all likely to have adverse effects on human health (http://www.who.int/foodsafety/biotech/meetings/ec_nov2003/en/).

However, the Vatican which despite opposition from its later leadership, including Pope John Paul II, has also been influenced in its policies by liberation theology, as espoused by Pope John Paul which articulated that the church should work for the liberation of the poor and the oppressed. Seen from this perspective, GM cash crops would make developing world farmers from countries such as the Philippines dependent on multinational corporations chemical farm inputs such as fertilizers and certain kinds of pesticides which are absolutely necessary to grow patented GM cash crops. As a result, the Vatican would be opposed to such exploitation because it would be anti-poor.

Monsignor Reinert said in the cable that the Philippines was a country "with a particularly anti-GMO Catholic hierarchy, joking that the Filipino Church would "go into schism" if the Vatican came out any stronger for biotech food."

According to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations website (http://www.aseansec.org/6234.htm), developed countries such as the United States, and Canada, and developing countries like Argentina, China, and Mexico,are already growing GMO crops in large scale. Examples of these plants are transgenic cotton, potato and corn which contain the endotoxin gene from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). 

Bt is a bacterium which produces a toxin that affects only certain insects but not other organisms. Since 1995, the US government has approved the sale and use of Bt plants. In fact, there is a shortage of supply of seeds of Bt crops since farmers prefer to plant these crops. In 1998, the area planted to transgenic crops worldwide, excluding China was 27.8 M hectares. It is estimated that in 1999, the area planted to transgenic crops could reach up to 44 million hectares or more.

The website said that GMO plants that are now being used in other countries have passed through very strict laboratory and field tests to show that they are safe for humans and not harmful to the environment. In the United States, for example, transgenic plants are evaluated by three regulatory agencies - the US Department of Agriculture, US Food and Drug Administration and US Environmental Protection Agency prior to their commercialization.

In the Philippines, researches on transgenic plants are regulated by the National Committee on Biosafety of the Philippines (NCBP). Their strict guidelines ensure the safety of the public and the environment before granting permission for researches in this field. Reportedly, the Philippines has one of the most stringent biosafety guidelines in the world.

GMOs may be used as a component of Integrated Pest Management (IPM). The selected genes that are transferred to the plants are toxic only to plant pests. Other natural enemies such as spiders, predators, parasites, and parasitoides are not affected. A combination of cultural, chemical and biological control can also be used to protect plants from pests if necessary.

In the Philippines, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (BIOTECH), both in Los Baños, and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) in Nueva Ecija are undertaking transgenic researches to improve the resistance of rice varieties to insect pests. BIOTECH and the Institute of Plant Breeding, also in the University of The Philippines Los Baños, are undertaking a joint study to produce a local Bt corn variety resistant to the Asiatic corn borer. IPB-UPLB has also already started its research to produce transgenic papaya and mango with delayed ripening characteristics.

However, no national policy has yet been formulated on the appropriate role of BIOTECH in UPLB and PhilRice, which are government institutions in undertaking cutting edge research that may have the potential of making farmers, who are already dependent on multinational pesticides and fertilizers for their farm inputs even more dependent by economically tying them into the purchase of GMO plants which would require the purchase of certain crop seeds that were created by multinational companies with the Bt gene, and thus create a monopolistic situation while reducing the biodiversity of crop species being grown by farmers.

Earlier, the Diliman Diary had reported on the leading role that UPLB and U.P. Mindanao were playing in conducting field research on Bt eggplants being grown on a test basis in Davao City. Concerns over potentials of biological contamination impelled the Davao City government to destroy the plants over the protests of U.P. officials (http://diliman-diary.blogspot.com/2010/12/davao-revoke-upmin-permit-to-field-test.html).

A Day of Shame for U.P. Mindanao by Eufremio T. Rasco, Jr.

PhThis is an essay by U.P. Mindanao Research head Dr. Eufemio T. Rasco, Jr. on the illegal uprooting of the Bt Eggplant samples last December 17-18, 2010 while everyone was at downtown Davao for the Kasadya lantern parade.

This is addressed to the City Government of Davao and the UP Mindanao administration and students.

This essay's link (http://www.scribd.com/doc/45672138/A-Day-of-Shame-for-UP-Mindanao) was emailed to the Facebook Page of the Diliman Diary by Mr. Sam Sanchez.

PERSPECTIVE

December 17, 2010: A Day of Shame for UP Mindanao

by Eufemio T. Rasco, Jr.

Few considered it an important issue. For the first time in the history of the 100 year-old university, a scientific experiment, the symbol of UP’s academic tradition, was destroyed upon the order of the honorable mayor of Davao City.

The order is unjustifiable. It was based on half-truths and exaggerations manufactured by the City Agriculturist. UP Mindanao took pains to clarify all of these directly and indirectly to the City Mayor, in newspapers and in various public fora. But the explanations fell on deaf ears. UP Mindanao pleaded for more time to explain; this was summarily denied.

Even if the City Agriculturist’s claims were true, it could be argued that the local government could not justify the destruction of the experiment. There was no imminent danger to life or the environment that might justify a drastic local government action on an activity that is officially permitted by the national government. The basis of the order, in the final analysis, was that UP Mindanao failed to post a notice in 1 out of 4 places in Davao City where it is supposed to, as a condition for granting a national government permit to do the experiment. The punishment, if warranted, would have been to revoke the permit. This could only be decided by the Bureau of Plant Industry, the organization that issued the permit. But the permit had not been revoked; BPI had not been asked by anyone to revoke the permit.

The order was carried out, in full view of the leadership of UP Mindanao, and by the same people who worked hard to set up the experiment, all of whom knew that the order was at best questionable, if not outright illegal.

Who gave the command to destroy on site? It was not even the City Agriculturist, the man who

was sent to carry out the order. She was an associate professor, a member of the Institutional

Biosafety Committee (IBC) of UP Mindanao -- the same IBC, by the way, that was remiss in posting the controversial notice.

The role of the IBC at that stage of the experiment was to monitor the procedures to ensure that they comply with BPI’s (the regulatory body’s) conditions for granting the permit to do the experiment. If the experiment was compliant, it was IBC’s duty to make sure that no one illegally interfered with it. If it was not compliant, it was IBC’s duty to report this to BPI. But the experiment was compliant; BPI, the official body to whom the IBC reports, said so in an official certification that everyone knew exists.

But one member of IBC decided that it is her role to carry out the order of the City Mayor, even without consulting the rest of the committee. In a fit of sadism, she asked the young researcher who worked so hard for the experiment, to destroy her own work while a noisy mob of anti-GMO advocates cheered. It is a spectacle that I will never forget.

While the rape of the university tradition’s symbol was taking place, most of the university’s constituents were in downtown Davao City 20 km away, participating in the annual parade of Christmas lanterns, even as they were alerted earlier in the day that the order was about to be carried out, and that their presence could help prevent the virtual invasion of UP Mindanao. Few cared. Those who do and were present in the experimental site, did little to stop the invasion. The project leader of the experiment, the UP Mindanao faculty who should be most concerned, was hundreds of kilometers away, enjoying an early Christmas break…

December 17, 2010 permanently tarnished the University of the Philippine’ self-image as a family of fearless, principled advocates of social change and a bastion of righteousness in the academic world. This image, recently enhanced by the standoff with the Supreme Court over a plagiarism issue, was lost in UP Mindanao.

On December 17, 2010, the name UP Mindanao has assumed a derogatory meaning. It is too

embarrassing to print what this meaning may be. We will forever carry this badge of shame. 

A former UP President once rhetorically asked: Does UP Mindanao deserve to be called UP? Many of us questioned this skepticism. But he may be right, after all.