QUESTION #2: If GMOs spread, by accident or otherwise, can you recall them?

QUESTION #3: Is the market for commercial GMO food expanding or shrinking?

QUESTION #4: Is the actual experience with GMOs of early adopters like the U.S. good or bad?

QUESTION #5: Have scientific feeding studies been done on human volunteers to directly determine potential and long-term health effects of GMO food?

QUESTION #6: Has a scientific consensus been established on the safety or non-safety of GMOs? Or is the scientific debate still going on?

QUESTION #7: Should we assume that GMOs are safe unless proven otherwise, or should we assume that they are not safe unless proven otherwise?

QUESTION #8: Are in you favor of the immediate adoption of mandatory labelling?

QUESTION #9: Considering the lack of consensus among scientists, why did the government accept a sham scientific and technical review of the first GMO field-test in the Philippines?

QUESTION #10: Did the NCBP thoroughly study the safety, environmental and economic issues raised against Bt corn?

QUESTION #11: Are there alternatives to engineering a poison gene into corn?

QUESTION #12: Do you prefer a GMO future or a GMO-free future?

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

By Roberto Verzola
Former Member
Natonal Committee on Biosafety of the Philippines

I started monitoring the debate on genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) very carefully in 1998, when I was asked to sit as a community representative within the National Committee for Biosafety of the Philippines (NCBP). The NCBP is the official government body that approves or disapproves GMO experiments in the country.

Ever since, I've gone through volumes of articles expressing the pros and the cons of GMOs. I've spoken in countless public symposia on the issue. I've personally debated publicly as well as privately many pro-GMO advocates including government officials, scientists, and industry representatives.

I know from personal experience that the pro-GMO arguments are very weak. I am confident I can debate any official or scientist and convince an open-minded listener that a GMO-free future in agriculture and food is a much more rational policy for our country than a GMO future.

However, the GMO issue is somewhat complicated because it involves a wide range of topics, from biology and chemistry to ecology and human health as well as economics and ethics. If we get sidetracked by so many details and esoteric material, we can easily miss the truly fundamental issues.

To really study the issue, the most important thing is to ask the right questions. Obviously, those who are new to the issue would not immediately know which questions to ask. Thus, they can get easily confused or even intimidated by scientific mumbo-jumbo.

I will concentrate on providing questions that you should insist must be answered. Based on my experience, I know that these questions reveal the fundamental issues in the debate. They can therefore help the audience decide for themselves if they want a GMO future or a GMO-free future.

Furthermore, double-check on the Internet any response that you get. In most of the country's major cities and capital towns, one can already find an Internet cafe, where you can do an information search. At forty pesos per hour on the average, this is a very convenient way to do research at reasonable cost.

I have repeatedly asked these questions below in various debates. Some of the questions are ignored, as if the pro-GMO advocates never heard it. If they reply, they often do so tangentially, in a misleading way, or in outright lies.

Ask these questions again and again. And insist on clear and direct answers. Do not stop until you get satisfactory answers.

HERE ARE THE QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK