Melvin Al Joershon R.

Esporsado MST 4 - Section E

Essay: What does the Bt eggplant incident mean to me?

When Dr. Eufemio T. Rasco announced in his MST5 class a year ago the he is currently developing a GM crop, a one of its kind that can resist more than one pest, I was excited and proud, I even told some my classmates about this development done in the school. It made me proud that the University is conducting research in order to satisfy current and future food problems. More than half a year, the research took another step in fulfilling the goal by testing the crops on an open field trial. It got me, and I believe the whole university also, very thrilled. But a heartbreaking news removed my smile and happiness during Kasadya 2010 when they announced that the crops were uprooted. And the very first thing that entered my mind was, How ignorant are these people!?! Days and weeks after, I saw some links in Facebook about news articles talking about the Bt eggplant. One that frustrated me was the article of Mr. Ledesma of Sunstar Davao in his editorial titled Bt talong and Frankenstein that eggplants arent that hard to grow so why study on such crops, this development is like Frankenstein and UPMin should stop this kind of insanity. It was a hot topic in the group page of Biological Society then because of his arguments that are not acceptable and irrational. Due to my will to correct the misconception that his article brings to the public, I commented on the online version of his article. I reasoned in my comment that the goal is not to grow eggplants, but to have higher yields of eggplants without the pesticide residues. I also defended the University about insulting the intelligence of Mayor Inday by setting up cyclone wires around their experimental field. The very reason that cyclone wires were utilized was that according to Administrative Order No. 8 of the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) to use such fence. Lastly, the main objective why this study was conducted is to have a stable food supply for today and the future. To clarify things further, our Genetics instructor, Verna Marie Hearne, was present at our batchs Christmas party the day after the uprooting. Out of our curiosity and will to know what really happened, we asked her why was the order given and what the Universitys lapse was. According to her, biosafety-wise, the University followed all the requirements but there was one, and only one procedure that was not carried out in terms of legal and technical procedures, which was to post the public notification in the City Hall. As a biology student, the incident was very discouraging and stressful because not everyone will appreciate and accept the developments which are for the people also. But just what maam Hearne said, Its okay, we just slowly and slowly convince them until they will understand the concepts of Bt eggplant.