THE BISHOPS HAVE RIGHTLY OPPOSED aerial spraying in banana farms on the basis of the ancient unassailable claim of justice: “Do not do to others what you would not like to be done to you.” They essentially dare the banana plantation owners and banana exporters: Are you yourselves willing to be exposed to these chemicals, the same way you expose others?
Aerial spraying entails the use of low-flying air planes to shower pesticides over the plantations, exposing the farm workers, the neighboring residents, and the down-stream and down-wind communities to health hazards. Four bishops have called it “immoral” because it “infringes upon human health and dignity.” On a related matter, the bishop of Infanta, Quezon, has likewise joined hands with the Agta-Dumagat indigenous peoples who will be displaced by the Laiban Dam that San Miguel Corp. and the MWSS propose to build in the Sierra Madre.
I’m glad the bishops have chimed in on these raging social disputes, though I wonder why we wait for men of the cloth to speak before conscienticized men and women cut from the same cloth take to the streets.
But there is hope. Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez has filed a bill banning Dithane, a fungicide to deter leaf diseases but which the US Environmental Protection Agency has found to cause cancer. Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri has proposed a total nationwide ban. Sentrong Albernatibong Lingap Panligal headed by UP law professor Arnold de Vera has asked the Supreme Court to uphold a Davao City ordinance banning aerial spraying in the city’s sprawling agricultural areas. (The Court of Appeals had earlier struck down the ordinance.)
The anti-aerial spraying bishops have threatened to bring the issue “to the international market.” That is not an idle threat. It has been done before. In the late 1990s, the Swiss grocery chain Migros signed a “social clause” with, among others, Del Monte Foods International Corp., to examine the social conditions under which the pineapples were grown, with regard to labor rights, land rights, and environmental standards (in particular, waste water disposal and fertilizers and pesticides). The logic was: Sellers and consumers are entitled to ask whether the fruits were grown hygienically—for example, far from sewer water, without sickening fertilizers, or using toxic insecticides. Why can’t they ask if the fruits were grown by underpaid and unhappy workers? If the consumer won’t feel good after eating fruits washed, to use an extreme example, in estero water, would he feel any better knowing the fruit was harvested by farmers with hearts embittered by injustice? Wouldn’t the bad vibes rub off on him who thrives off the pain of others?
Poor countries like ours have endured “social and environmental dumping” in the “race to the bottom” for a share in global trade. What “fair trade” proposes, however, is not to kill the banana industry but to improve the conditions of work for the worker while securing markets for the producers. The enforcement mechanism used was “social labeling” that assures the consumer that the product he is buying has been made under acceptable conditions. It empowers the consumer to vote with his pocketbook, and knowingly to pay a premium—a higher price—to support values that he has embraced. It rewards producers with price premiums if they comply with fair trade standards.
Therein lies the problem with the bishops’ threat to bring the issue “to the international market.” Look at the market for Philippine bananas. Figures from 2002 show that we exported some 1.4 million tons of bananas worth close to $300 million. We rank 4th all over the world among banana exporting countries and, in 2000, contributed almost 10 percent of the world’s bananas. But our main markets are Japan (66 percent), China (12 percent), Republic of Korea (7 percent), Taiwan (6 percent) and United Arab Emirates (6 percent), with Saudi Arabia and Iran as growing markets as well. Now let me ask you: Do you think those banana eaters will—before they take a bite—think about the banana farmers and ask if they had ingested all the pesticides?
Market-based solutions assume that consumers are ready to use their buying power to teach immoral traders a lesson. These solutions assume that consumers have a conscience and are prepared to act on that conscience. Of all the countries mentioned above, I would venture that Japan, Korea and Taiwan would have active consumer movements able to muster a market demand for “aerial-spraying-free” bananas.
That is why the pending battle before the Supreme Court looms as the most real solution. Earlier this year, the Court of Appeals’ Mindanao Station in Cagayan de Oro struck down the Davao ban as “unreasonable and oppressive.” One, its 3-month grace period to shift to non-aerial spraying was “impossible to comply with.” All other forms of spraying would have entailed a longer transition period, or would result in similar health hazards. Two, the CA struck Davao’s ban for overbreadth, for being a “sweeping imposition against … all forms of substances” that extends to innocent vitamins or minerals as well. Three, the 30-meter buffer zone requirement, as applied to small plantations, amounts to a taking of private property without just compensation.
The SC’s past rulings disfavor such “heightened scrutiny” over mere property regulations. It reserves such searching review only for violations of civil liberties and instead applies a deferential standard. Social justice is constitutionalized to insulate it from politics where it is expected to lose. The spraying ban won the day in Davao politics but sadly lost in the courts, in the very sanctuary where the Constitution thought it would be safest.
