DAVAO CITY—Banana growers in this city have sought relief from the court to stop the city government from implementing a ban on aerial spraying in the plantations.

The Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters’ Association (PBGEA) has asked the court last week to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) and a writ of preliminary injunction against the city government to stop the latter from implementing the ban that would take effect next month.

The city’s ban on the use of aerial spraying to apply pesticides has given plantations only three months from March this year to shift to boom spray or other modes of pesticide application that PBGEA said was “too short for even a preparation.”

Stephen Antig, PBGEA president, told BusinessMirror that his group filed a civil case at the regional trial court here to determine if the city ordinance was constitutional or not “and if proven unconstitutional, we want that it be recalled or amended.”

“We feel that we have exhausted all remedies to convince the city council that aerial spraying is not that harmful as [proponents] portrayed. Government agencies such as the Department of Health, Department of Trade and Industry and the National Economic and Development Authority have supported us, and even the DOH has issued a statement that it has not found any conclusive evidence that there have been victims of aerial spraying,” he said.

He said: “We are not angry, though. It’s just that we should have also been given adequate transition period. We cannot be angry because the city government is only doing its job, but we also have to protect our own members.”

The PBGEA has asked the city council, in its various committee hearings last year, to give them 25 years, but Antig said they can settle for a shorter period of even three years.

“We only want to be given enough time to shift from aerial spraying to other modes of application,” he said. “Three months is really too short to comply while investment required is big.”

The civil case asked the court to issue a TRO against the city government to prevent the latter from making any immediate move to implement the ordinance.

The PBGEA wanted the TRO to be in effect while the court would hear its petition for a writ of preliminary injunction, or an order to stop any implementation of the final phaseout of aerial application of pesticides by June 23, the third month after the ordinance was passed on March 23.

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DAVAO CITY—Banana growers in this city have sought relief from the court to stop the city government from implementing a ban on aerial spraying in the plantations.