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DAVAO
CITY—Banana-plantation owners and their growers here are
pitted against the city government in a fierce court
battle where they want to stop the city government from
implementing a ban on aerial spraying of pesticides in
the plantations starting June 23 this year.
The
owners and growers, represented by the Pilipino Banana
Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA), and the city
government, represented by the City Legal Office,
entered their second day on Tuesday of skirmish in a
weeklong marathon of hearings that would determine if
the PBGEA would be granted its wish for an injunction,
or a stop, to the implementation of the ban.
Stephen
Antig, president of the association, said no compromise
had been struck between plantation owners and banana
growers with the City Legal Office during the 10 days
the court had given them to talk it over.
“So, I
think the marathon court hearings would proceed,” Antig
earlier told reporters Friday last week, after attending
a road show in Davao of the Development Bank of the
Philippines at the Marco Polo Hotel here.
The
10-day period—from May 9 to 18—was the period given by
Regional Trial Court (RTC ) Judge Renato Fuentes of
Branch 17 to PBGEA to submit its position on the
petition of 12 residents near the plantations that they
be allowed to intervene in the case between the PBGEA
and the city government.
Fuentes
urged the two parties, too, to rethink their position of
seeking court remedy to the objection of PBGEA against
the June 23 implementation, describing it as too short a
grace period to shift from aerial spraying to whatever
mode of application of pesticides.
The case
for intervention was filed on May 9 by the residents who
wished the court to grant them the status as
“intervenors” to express their position to oppose the
PBGEA’s move to prevent the city government from
implementing the ban on June 23 this year.
The
implementation followed the passage of the ordinance
titled “Banning Aerial Spraying as an Agricultural
Practice in all Agricultural Activities by all
Agricultural Entities in Davao City” on March 23. The
ordinance prohibits the use of aerial spraying as a mode
of applying chemicals, mainly pesticides, in the banana
and other plantations. These areas are located mostly in
the districts of
Baguio,
Calinan and Marilog in the northwest, in Mandug and
Callawa area in north-central Davao City, and in Toril
in the southwest.
The ban
gave plantation owners and banana growers three months
to shift to any mode of application and required them to
set aside 30 meters in the perimeters of their
plantations as buffer zone that should be planted with
“diversified trees that grow taller than what are
usually planted and grown in the plantation to protect
those within adjacent fields, neighboring farms,
residential areas, schools and workplaces.” |
