Pesticide victims await justice in Philippines

Larion Yana took his two grandsons to a local clinic in November for a checkup after both complained of itchy arms and legs.

Gabriel and Romeo scratched their arms on the way to the government health station in Calinan, a farming district in Davao City, 965 kilometers southeast of Manila. During the checkup on Nov. 15, government physician Sigmund Atillo said the boys showed symptoms of dermatitis, a condition involving swelling of the skin.

Yana has been diagnosed with the same health problem since 1999, at which time some banana plantation owners were already spraying pesticides from low-flying planes. Owners now reportedly spray around 900 of the 5,000 hectares of land planted in banana, including four areas in Calinan district.

"Skin diseases may have been caused by direct exposure to the chemicals," Atillo told UCA News, because many of the farmers live within the plantations. According to the doctor, other patients waiting for their checkup were suffering from respiratory ailments.

For dermatitis, he said, the City Health Office can supply only anti-allergy creams and lotions, since "most of the medicines needed are expensive." He also noted the need for further medical assessment and scientific studies to determine the cause of the ailments.

Groups including Mamamayan Ayaw sa Aerial Spraying (MAAS, citizens opposed to aerial spraying) are leading a movement to stop aerial spraying, which they call a "toxic shower."

Luisa Lim, another farmer at the Calinan health center, also suffers from dermatitis. She told UCA News her husband, a plantation worker, and teenage children have skin disorders too.

Yana said he is not a MAAS member but joins its activities, including last year's march to a Davao City court for a hearing in the case the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) filed against an aerial spraying ban.

The Davao local government passed the ban in March 2007, after experts at a 2006 public hearing in Davao supported MAAS' contention that spraying was dangerous. Lynn Panganiban, a medical doctor heading the National Poison Control Management Center at the state-run University of the Philippines in Manila, and toxicologist Romeo Quijano of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Philippines gave testimony. They told the city council that paraquat dichloride and ethylene bisdithiocarbamates, the chemicals reportedly being sprayed, are poisonous and can cause toxic reactions.

The ban ordinance was to be implemented on June 23, 2007, giving PBGEA members three months to shift to other modes of chemical application. It also set a 30-meter buffer zone that plantation owners and banana growers were to plant with taller trees to shield adjacent fields, neighboring farms, residential areas, schools and workplaces from the chemicals.

When the PBGEA questioned its validity and constitutionality, the regional trial court upheld the ordinance in September 2007, but the association appealed that ruling too. The Court of Appeals has postponed the ban while the case is under deliberation.

A November congress of more than 300 Basic Ecclesial Community (BEC) workers, formators and supporters in Cagayan de Oro City, northwest of Davao, issued a statement on Nov. 13 expressing "solidarity with MAAS." The participants asked the Court of Appeals in Cagayan de Oro to "expeditiously resolve the case" for the sake of people's health and the safety of the environment.

They stressed that "the preservation of the environment, life and health of the people take precedence over profits."

The 2004 Bureau of Agricultural Statistics ranks the Philippines as the second largest banana-exporting country. Forty-one percent of the country's banana production reportedly comes from the Davao region.

The PBGEA comprises 29 companies growing and exporting bananas for markets in the Asia-Pacific Region, including the banana division of Dole Philippines and Del Monte Fresh Produce Philippines.

Yana told UCA News that after hearing of the Church statement, he wanted to go to his parish to personally thank BEC members who attended the Nov. 10-14 congress that issued it.

Davao archdiocese, based in Davao City, serves the city along with Samal and Talicud islands of Davao del Norte province. Seventy-one percent of the 1,937,358 people in its territory are Catholics, and the rest are mostly other Christians, Muslims and indigenous people with their native faiths.