“Farmers, scientists and food security advocates challenge candidates in the 2016 elections to repeal Presidential Decree 1620, a Marcosian decree that granted IRRI immunity from any suit or liability to local laws,” the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said in a statement yesterday.
KMP chair Rafael Mariano said “IRRI’s more than half a century of existence in the Philippines has failed to address the lingering problem of hunger among Filipinos.” “The carnage in Kidapawan that killed and wounded farmers seeking food aid is a telling example of how IRRI failed in its mission to reduce poverty and hunger and improving the plight of rice farmers and consumers,” said Mariano.
He noted that the Philippines rated 20.1 percent or serious level of hunger in 2015, based on the latest Global Hunger Index.
“IRRI prides itself as the global pioneer in rice research yet Filipino farmers who feed the nation are hungry. For farmers, IRRI is no more than a symbol foreign control and onslaught on Philippine and South East Asian agriculture,” added Mariano.
He lamented that “IRRI’s first ‘Green Revolution’ of the 1960s and 1970s that promoted high yielding varieties of rice and corn led to the increasing use of pesticides and herbicides that damaged the natural ecosystem in rice fi elds and made local rice varieties heavily dependent on agrochemicals.”
“Now, even IRRI’s second ‘Green Revolution’ that focuses on impacts of climate change has failed to alleviate the effects of drought on rice production. In North Cotabato, more than 50,000 hectares of parched rice and corn lands were wasted and damaged P1-billion worth of agricultural crops,” Mariano noted.
In 1960, the Philippine government forged an agreement with the US-based Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and allowed the establishment of IRRI in the country as a non-profit independent rice research and training organization that develops new rice varieties and rice cropping techniques.
“Under the deceptive guise of reducing poverty and hunger, improving health of farmers and consumers and ensuring environmental sustainability through research, IRRI became instrumental in promoting hybrid genetically engineered crops that complement the use of pesticide products which are developed and marketed by transnational corporations to earn big profits,” Mariano said.
He recalled that in 1979 during Martial Law, then Pres. Ferdinand Marcos enacted Presidential Decree 1620 that granted IRRI the status, prerogatives and immunities of an international organization, eff ectively shielding IRRI from any suit or liability from Philippine laws and jurisdiction.
“This is despite the devastating eff ects of IRRI’s reckless field testings and research that exposed farmers, IRRI workers, communities and the entire ecosystem the long-term effects of continuous exposure to pesticide poisoning,” he said.
Mariano said PD 1620 is unconstitutional, violative of the International Labor Organization conventions and a retraction of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“The Philippines is the only country in the world that recognizes IRRI as an international organization with unconditional privileges despite the reality that IRRI is not a specialized agency of the United Nations,” he added.
Farmers and advocates also raised their demand for the Aquino government “to make IRRI liable for its crimes against the peasantry and the people, including the death and illnesses suffered by IRRI workers and farmers in communities and experimental farms as result of chronic exposure to pesticides and chemicals.”
