RSSFarmer Cecilia Moran fought back tears as she shared with a university gathering how aerial spraying of chemicals on a banana plantation near her home made her child ill.
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A farmer from Mindanao prays at |
“She had a hard time breathing and her skin was itchy and irritated,” the 47 year-old mother told 60 representatives of Church and human rights groups, school workers, artists, and environmental and social development activists.
They were attending a meeting of the MAAS (Mamamayan Ayaw sa Aerial Spraying, or citizens against aerial spraying) at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University northeast of Manila Aug. 7.
Moran claimed that sicknesses in her village in the southern Davao City, on Mindanao island, are triggered by the spraying of chemicals.
Children and adults living in the area suffer from blindness, paralysis, cerebral palsy, respiratory and lung problems, cancer and goiter, she claimed.
Moran, an MAAS member, said the group is appealing for help after legal action failed despite a Department of Health study recommending the banning of aerial spraying.
Jesuit seminarian Jomarie Manzano of the Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan (Church in service of nation) group promised the group that he would organize students and members of Ateneo de Manila schools to support campaigns against aerial spraying of harmful chemicals.
“For now we will facilitate, especially in Ateneo, issue-exposure or awareness-raising among students until we develop more support,” he told UCA News.
Xaverian Father Archie Casey who coordinates the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Commission of the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines said he would also raise the issue with his association so it could plan its response.
The gathering was given an outline of the problem by Rene Pineda, president of the National Task Force Against Aerial Spray (NTFAAS). Pineda said that spraying pesticides from small airplanes or helicopters has been carried out on banana plantations in Mindanao since 1970s. Owners now reportedly spray around 900 of the 5,000 hectares of banana-plantation land, including four areas in Calinan district where Moran lives.
He said the mixture sprayed usually contains pesticide, water, and oil or a binding or emulsifying substance. He also identified various fungicides used including one which he said was suspected of causing birth defects such as cleft palates.
He cited the Department of Health´s May 2009 study in which an examination of some villagers´ blood, and air and soil samples, in Mindanao´s Davao del Sur province reportedly confirmed contamination beyond agricultural plantation boundaries.
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Xaverian Father Archie Casey (second from left) listens to farmers whose lives have been affected by aerial spraying of pesticides |
Lia Esquillo, Executive Director of Interface Development Interventions (IDIS), a Davao-based environment NGO that brought Moran and three other farmers to Manila, described the global action being taken against aerial spraying.
“The clamor to ban aerial spraying of pesticides is a worldwide trend — in Ecuador, Alaska, Maine and California (in the United States), Victoria in Canada, New Zealand, India,” she reported. The European Union is contemplating a ban, she added.
In Mindanao, however, where people are directly affected by the chemical showers on their skin, the government is not doing anything, Esquillo said.
Opposition is not enough, she told the forum, adding that “proactive activities” are called for.
Farmers joined the university´s First Friday evening Mass and shared their experiences.
At a meeting of farmers and their supporters on Aug. 10, Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo of Manila told farmers the Church will help inform people about their problem through the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines, Manila archdiocese´s ecology desk and the archdiocese´s Radio Veritas 846.
The prelate is head of the bishops´ National Secretariat for Social Action.
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