Thursday, January 15, 2009 PBGEA comes out with official statement
PILIPINO Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) officially welcomed the Court of Appeals' (CA) decision declaring the aerial spray ban in Davao City unconstitutional by issuing a statement after receiving a copy of the 45-page decision.
"We welcome the decision of the Court of Appeals. We are relieved that the court made a sober appreciation of the merits of the case and eventually ruled in our favor," said PBGEA spokesman Anthony Sasin in their statement.
"We are one with the Davao City government in its desire to protect the environment and health of Davaoenos that include thousands who depend on the banana industry for their livelihood," he added.
PBGEA, in a separate fact sheet, also cited "salient points" of the decision, which they feel played in their favor. Among these is that the CA "found the three-month transition period unreasonable, oppressive and physically impossible to comply."
"Thus, in view of the infrastructural requirements as methodically explained, we are convinced it was physically impossible for petitioners-appellants to carry out a carefully planned configuration of vast hectares of banana plantations and be able to actually adopt 'truck mounted boom spraying' within three months," the PBGEA statement added.
To compel petitioners-appellants to abandon aerial spraying in favor of 'manual or backpack spraying' or 'sprinkler spraying' within three months puts petitioners-appellants in a vicious dilemma between protecting its investments and its workers' health, on one hand, and the threat of prosecution if they refuse to comply with the imposition on the other.
We found the three-month transition period insufficient, not only in acquiring and gearing-up plantation workers of safety appurtenances but also in reviewing safety procedures for 'manual or backpack spraying' and training workers for such purpose.
Additionally, engineering workers for the sprinkler system of banana plantations could not possibly be completed within such period, considering safety and efficiency factors need to be considered in its structural re-designing.
The CA also found the testimonies of the witnesses of the City of Davao and interveners failed to prove that their alleged complaints were caused by aerial spraying and the studies made by Dr. Lynn Panganiban failed to show that aerial spraying poses a risk to public health and the environment.
"We perused Dr. Panganiban's curriculum vitae, particularly with respect to the researches she has been involved with and found that not one research actually relate to a study on the consequential effects of aerial spraying of substances on public health and the environment. While she testified that pesticides or fungicides are inherently poisonous substances dangerous to public health and the environment, she failed to establish that aerial application of fungicides or pesticides poses greater risk to the people's health and the ecology," PBGEA said.
The CA also said there is no proof showing that the proliferation of rhinoceros beetles in coconut plantations was due to aerial spraying and the Davao City watershed was actually contaminated by aerial spraying.
With these reasons, the CA favored PBGEA and thus aerial spraying can now be used again as a method of pesticide control. PBGEA, however, said they will be more careful this time.
"We shall continue to protect the environment and our people's health as we have always done. A Multipartite Monitoring Team with representatives from the national and local government continues to monitor our aerial spraying operations and other environmental concerns. The public can be assured that our farm stewardship remains safe to public health and the environment, as they have always been," Sasin said.
The statement did not say anything about the buffer zones that banana plantations should set up.
PBGEA added it is willing to "cooperate with Davao City and have aerial spraying in Davao City regulated but opposed a total ban."
The City Government of Davao and parties who intervened in the case have 15 days to file a motion for reconsideration and later appeal the CA decision to the Supreme Court.
"We welcome any motion for reconsideration or appeal that may be filed for this case. We remain confident in the merits of our case. We feel that this decision by the Court of Appeals will eventually be upheld by the Supreme Court in the end," Sasin said. (GLP/With PR)
