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DA
Chief Dared to Face Probe
Over Pesticide Poisoning
After
15 years of tragedy - including 17 deaths according to a peasant's testimony -
residents of a peasant village in Digos, Davao del Sur in southern Philippines
are ready to break their silence when their complaints of pesticide poisoning
will be up for congressional investigation. The subject of the investigation:
Luis “Cito” Lorenzo, Jr., secretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA),
whose family owns the Lapanday banana plantation which is accused of the
pesticide poisoning.
By
Gerry Albert Corpuz
Bulatlat.com
DIGOS CITY, Davao del Sur - A peasant leader has asked Agriculture
Secretary Luis “Cito” Lorenzo, Jr. to resign and face investigation by
Congress over persistent reports of pesticide poisoning in Kamukhaan Village.
Kamukhaan in this town is a peasant community located in the 613-hectare banana
plantation of Lapanday Development Corporation (Ladeco), which is owned by the
Lorenzo family. At least 17 residents, including children, have died and scores
taken ill as a result of pesticide poisoning, a Kamukhaan woman peasant told a recent
fact-finding mission.
Danilo
Ramos, secretary general of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP –
Peasant Movement in the Philippines), accused Lorenzo of using his Cabinet
position “to support his family's stake in Ladeco and thwart any opposition
against the alleged use of poisonous chemicals in the operations of the
Lorenzo-owned banana plantation.”
"The people's livelihood, health and environment have been sacrificed at the
altar of the Lorenzo family’s and Ladeco's endless fetish for super profits,"
Ramos said.
Ramos’s challenge to Lorenzo came up over the weekend following the results of
a fact-finding mission organized organized by KMP in cooperation with Agham, a group of
concerned scientists and technologists, the Center for Environmental Concerns (CEC)
and Cause-Davao del Sur last Feb. 24-27.
Members
of the fact-finding mission will submit their report to the Senate committee on
agriculture and its counterpart at the House alongside with its request for both
houses to conduct an immediate inquiry on the Kamukhaan village
tragedy.
The fact-finding mission was also joined by American Jack Weinberg, president of
the Environmental Health Fund Global Chemical Safety Program; Kaveri Dutt from
India; anti-toxic activist Dr. Romeo Quijano; and representatives from the
National Poison Control Center, St. Scholastica's College, UP College of Social
Work and Community Development-Research and Documentation Department and the
Peasant Education and Studies Center (PESC).
Initial
findings
Initial findings revealed that a significant number of residents examined by the
medical team in Kamukhaan Village were suffering from respiratory and
gastro-intestinal illnesses.
One
resident, Nanette Rodriguez, 37, said that in 1988, serious illnesses began to
appear. “At one time, children got sick and 17 died. One mother, in one day,
two of her children died, then, also the neighbors, there were many who
died," she said.
Aling Nanette and the rest of the peasant villagers in Kamukhaan have been
blaming Ladeco for hundreds of cases of death and skin- and respiratory-related
ailments attributed to the widespread application of pesticides since the banana
plantation expanded its operations 15 years ago.
"Before, the coconut trees bore a lot of fruits,” Aling Nanette
recounted. “But when the spraying came, the plants started to die so they were
cut down because they no longer bore fruits. Also, our farm animals, if we have
chicken, when they apply MOCAP, NEMA (pesticides), if the chickens enter the
area, they come out dead. That's why Ladeco should stop using these chemicals
because they cause great damage."
Other community residents said that in 1997 a fish kill took place in the
communal fish ponds located inside Kamukhaan Village. "Even before 1997,
there were fish kills. They were poisoned by the harmful pesticides," Aling
Nanette said.
In her opinion, Lapanday should stop using the chemicals and if possible, the
land should be divided and given to the people. Otherwise, bigger disasters will
set in, she says.
White spots
Edgar Rodriguez, 41, said he became ill since October last year after he inhaled
sprinkled chemicals. On days that an airplane sprinkles chemicals on the
Lapanday banana plantation, he experiences headaches and white spots grow on his
skin, he said.
"I could not sleep at night and had difficulties in breathing most of the
time," Mang Edgar said.
On the other hand, Michael Bakiran recalled his mother telling him that every
time she passes by the plantation she inhaled chemicals. Bakiran said chemicals
used by Lapanday had bad smell, like garlic. He now suspects that the cause of
his mother's enlarged neck and stomach was Lapanday's pesticides and
other chemicals used in banana farming.
Bakiran's mother died a tragic death. "She became very weak, she became
thin. She was brought to the hospital and the findings were
’complicated.’ She was not able to go back to the hospital. After two
weeks she died," he remembered.
The mission also found that most males showed signs and symptoms of anemia and
possible blood dyscrasias, while a significant number of patients, both male and
female exhibited signs and symptoms of tremors and palpitations suggestive of
endocrine disruption.
The fact-finding team likewise noted many children showing developmental delays
including stunting, wasting, delays in the development of secondary sexual
characteristics and mental deficiencies.
Dr. Rodney Hernandez of the Institute for Occupational Health Safety and
Development (IOHSAD) who led the medical component of the fact-finding mission
said that all these strongly suggest that environmental pollutants made
significant health impacts on the community.
"The case of Kamukhaan Village in Ladeco banana plantation is consistent
with independent studies documenting health impacts from pesticide
exposure," Dr. Fernandez said.
KMP's
Ramos, on the other hand, said the Ladeco banana farm is untouchable in the
province and widely known as “notorious” in spreading harmful and poisonous
pesticides as he urged the Senate and House committees on agriculture to conduct
an immediate inquiry on the issue.
”Aside from being untouched by any land reform, Secretary Lorenzo's
family-owned banana plantation has been saturating farmers' land with pesticides
and harmful chemicals that prevent them from growing their crops and pestering
them with scores and various kinds of illness," the peasant leader said.
Subsidiary
Ladeco's subsidiary, the Global Fruits Corporation (GFC), is also the current
subject of numerous complaints among residents in Tampakan, South Cotabato. The
Social Action Center of Koronadal City is documenting cases of various
complaints against GFC.
Minnie F. Lopez, KMP media information officer, told Bulatlat.com that religious
groups, environmentalists and peasant organizations in South Cotabato have
joined forces to stop GFC from pesticide-poisoning activities.
Lopez denounced GFC's and Ladeco's claims that reports charging both corporations
of pesticide poisoning are fraudulent and mere media spin as he urged the Lorenzo
family to submit themselves to a fair and square probe.
"The
case of Kamukhaan Village will be linked to Ladeco's anarchic and irresponsible
use of pesticides and other harmful chemicals that would soon explode into a
wide-scale pesticide exposure," she said.
The fact finding team, likewise pressed Lorenzo to come out with an
untampered list of Ladeco's pesticides and pesticide application processes in
response to Ladeco's charges against the mission that their (fact-finding team)
allegations against the banana plantation were “utterly without basis and only
based on surmised conjectures."
"The people who participated in the fact-finding mission are professional
doctors, experts in their respective fields, environmentalists and social
scientists who are independent-minded, patriotic and with unquestionable
integrity," KMP said. Bulatlat.com
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