The battle against aerial spraying continues.
Environmental groups in Davao City, Mamamayang Ayaw sa Aerial Spray (MAAS) and Interfacing Development Interventions for Sustainability (IDIS), are reviving the call on the banning of aerial spraying in the city coinciding the 5th year anniversary on August 16, 2021 since the Supreme Court decision declaring the Ban Aerial Spraying Ordinance of Davao City as unconstitutional.
Dagohoy P. Magaway, president of MAAS, in a statement said it has taken five long years for Dabawenyos to understand the reasons behind the 2016 Supreme Court’s rules in favor of industry-defined technicalities rather than in the defense of innocent lives affected by the fumigation of chemical pesticides in and around the banana plantations.
“Our main regret here in Davao is that our own plea for a city-wide ban on aerial spraying was merely in the interest of poor people and the environment,” Magaway said.
In 2007, the city government of Davao passed an ordinance on banning the use of aerial spray in all agricultural entities within the city and encouraged ground spraying instead. However, several banana companies questioned the legality of the ban in court and filed a lawsuit against the city government seeking to strike down the ordinance as unconstitutional.
Years after the ordinance was scrapped, the aerial spraying of pesticides is still performed in banana plantations in four barangays in Davao City; Brgy. Lacson, Dacudao, Lasang, and Subasta.
MAAS stressed that this type of agricultural practice not only contributes to air and water pollution but also has detrimental health effects on workers and communities nearby. With the absence of the ordinance/policy and monitoring teams on plantations, aerial spraying continues in Davao City.
“It is with great sadness that we, the ordinary citizens of Davao, have witnessed the government grant more weight in the justice system to big business than to their human constituents, the very source of their political power,” Magaway said.
Last August 13, 2021, IDIS visited Brgy. Dacudao and Brgy. Lacson to check and ask the residents regarding their situation and problems regarding aerial spraying.
According to the statement, during the interview, the residents of both barangays shared that there are no buffer zones between the plantations and their communities.
The statement also stated that some people are suffering from skin itchiness.
It can be recalled that in 2019, IDIS conducted a study entitled “Mapping of Cavendish Banana Plantations & Affected Communities of Aerial Spraying in South Central Mindanao” to check the actual situation of banana plantations within the area, verify active aerial spraying practices, and analyze its effects to the community.
The study revealed that four barangays in Davao City have continued and resumed aerial spraying in their plantations and what is alarming is that there are residential communities and schools adjacent to these plantations with weak agricultural buffer zones.
MAAS and IDIS are now calling the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to strictly monitor the buffer zones between the communities and plantations. The groups also urged the DENR – Environment Management Bureau to intensify the inspection on plantations before the issuance of Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC).
They are also calling the city government of Davao to fully implement the Watershed Code that prohibits the aerial spraying on the environmental critical areas, create a Local Multipartite Monitoring Team (MTT) for Plantations, and support the proposed city ordinance on banning the aerial spray in all agricultural entities within Davao City.
