In Many Davao Villages, Poison Pours from the Sky
• Farmers Seek Ban on Aerial Spraying of Pesticides
• Banana Chemical Downs 80 Davao del Norte Residents, Mostly School Kids
• Catholic bishops urge banana firms to stop poison rain
Environmentalists denounce the continued aerial spraying of pesticides in banana plantations in Davao City and Southern Mindanao. They note the havoc wrought by aerial pesticide use, among them diseases and an increasingly imbalanced ecosystem.
By Germelina A. Lacorte
davaotoday.com
DAVAO CITY — The air would smell of alquitran (tar) and the leaves of malunggay (horse radish tree) would turn into what looked like beans.
A woman from Panabo thus described what happened to her plants after the aerial spraying of a nearby banana plantation.
I did not believe her at first, said Josephine Quiamzon, vice-chairperson of the environmental group Panaghoy sa Kinaiyahan. Until I saw malunggay leaves turned into what looked like monggo seeds when they fell to the ground and wilted, she said.
During the Earth Day celebrations last week, environmentalist groups here called on government to ban the aerial spraying of pesticides, which has become a common practice among banana plantations here, according to the environment group Interface Development Interventions Inc. (IDIS).
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[...] * In Many Davao Villages, Poison Pours from the Sky [...]
Thank you for this wonderful report on the deadly effects of aerial spraying of pesticides. The case filed by the company against my father and I continues and though persecuted, our experience is nothing compared to that of villagers from Kamukhaan, who are being harrassed on top of having been heartlessly robbed of so many of their basic rights, including their right to live.
[...] This incident, the latest in a string of chemical poisoning in the Philippines the past week, is sure to revive the debate in Davao on how banana plantations are using chemicals, particularly aerial spraying. This early, one environment group warned that what happened in Dujali could happen in Davao. [...]