Some 115,000 Grade I public school pupils nationwide will be supplied with locally-produced milk by dairy farmers beginning opening of school year this year. According to the Department of Agriculture…
Mothers feeding their infants with condensed milk. A flea from a buffalo is considered a cure for toothache. The sick crossing rivers and climbing mountains to get to a nearest hospital. Most pregnant women not being able to see a midwife, let alone a doctor. These are the stories from poor communities that a health group gathered in its attempt to diagnose the state of people’s health in Mindanao.
By Cheryll D. Fiel
davaotoday.com
DAVAO CITY ? The conventional wisdom is that, poverty being so widespread in the Philippines, the state of health of poor Filipinos leaves much to be desired. In Mindanao, where most of the country?s poorest provinces are located, the problem is particularly more acute.
A recent survey conducted by the nongovernment health group Community Based Health Services Association (CBHSA) affirmed many of the sad realities of the Philippine health care system, particularly in Mindanao. Many of the afflictions Mindanaoans suffer were preventable, the study found out, but these diseases became chronic and incurable because of the widespread poverty and lack of health services.
The environment group Greenpeace today lambasted the Department of Agriculture for allegedly flip-flopping on an earlier order revoking the authorization for the use of a genetically modified corn called MON863, which the group has found to be toxic. Mindanao is the country’s largest corn producer where many of these GMOs have been cultivated.
Although the Green Vote campaign recognizes Davao City’s efforts to protect the environment, the groups behind it insist more drastic actions are needed to realize these goals. Good governance, they say, plays a key role in protecting the environment. They blame corruption for much of the environmental destruction.
Greenpeace demands immediate withdrawal, moratorium on GMO approvals
Manila/Berlin/Paris, 14 March 2007–A genetically-modified (GM) corn
strain approved for food, feed and processing in the Philippines shows
signs of toxicity to mammals, a new study released today reveals. The
study, and written by a panel of three independent scientists in France,
showed that laboratory rats fed with the GMO corn Monsanto (MON) 863
YieldGard Rootworm displayed kidney and liver toxicity. MON 863 is corn
genetically manipulated to produce its own insecticide called ‘modified
Cry3Bb1’ to kill rootworm insects in the soil, and contains gene coding
for antibiotic resistance.