• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The three bishops of Negros Occidental have issued a joint statement opposing the attempt to lift the province’s 18-year ban on genetically modified organisms, adding that lifting the GMO ban is a violation of rights.
In a joint pastoral statement released on Sunday, Bacolod Bishop Patricio Buzon, Kabankalan Bishop Louie Galbines, and San Carlos Bishop Gerardo Alminaza, urged the Negros Occidental provincial government to reject the proposed GMO Regulatory Ordinance and preserve Provincial Ordinance No. 7 (2007), the landmark law that keeps Negros GMO-free.
The three Negros bishops said “our faith calls us to be responsible stewards of nature.”
They said that Provincial Ordinance No. 007 (2007), which prohibits the cultivation of GMOs, is not merely a regulatory statement. “It is an ethical achievement, a landmark act of ecological justice, and a testimony to the wisdom of our people,” the bishops stressed.
To weaken or repeal it, according to the three Negros bishops, would not only be imprudent, adding that “it would be irresponsible, unjust and dangerous.”
They further claimed that GMOs threaten biodiversity, soil integrity, and food sovereignty.
Calling the push to allow GMO cultivation a “betrayal of our ecological heritage” and a threat to the rights and safety of Negrenses, the bishops stressed that introducing GMOs would undermine decades of progress in organic farming and expose communities to long-term, irreversible harm.
With Negros Occidental has long been recognized as the organic agricultural capital of the Philippines, the bishops said “to abandon this identity now – especially while hosting the Terra Madre – is an embarrassment before the world and betrayal of our own people.”
The three Negros bishops called on the provincial government not to trade long-term ecological integrity for short term political or corporate pressure, for local government units to maintain their organic commitments, and be on the side of the people.
They also called on the farmers, youth and civil society to hold their leaders accountable, defend the land, seeds, and their future.
The bishops warned that dismantling the GMO ban would not only damage the identity of Negros as the Philippines’ organic agriculture capital, but would also violate the people’s rights to health, food sovereignty, and a safe environment – all while worsening climate vulnerability in an island already battered by extreme weather.
In this moment of climate emergency, food insecurity, and ecological crisis, we reiterate our unchanging and united stand “Negros must remain GMO-Free” the bishops further stressed.*
