An open letter to President Aquino on coco pest

Coconut farmers and processors are in a panic over the decision of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) to introduce a highly toxic chemical as a solution to the rapidly spreading infestation of the coconut scale insect.

There have been effective organic solutions, but why do your agencies insist on the chemical solution? Chemicals have resulted in fruits turning sour, unfit for selling in the market. If the whole world learns that chemicals are lacing our coconut oil and copra, the multibillion-peso coconut industry, which nourishes 25 percent of our population, will collapse. The exporters of coconut-derived products risk losing their international organic certificates. We will not know if we are using chemical-laced coconut oil, which will infect everything we fry in the kitchen.

The DA and PCA convinced you to promulgate Executive Order No. 169, which does not state the chemical solution but empowers them to use it. They kept their sinister plan hidden. Now they say it is an emergency solution to save the industry, when it will actually kill it.

What is their motive? First, they will receive a big fund, a rumored P700 million. Second, the infestation started in 2009 and they have done nothing until now. They have to appear to be on top of the situation, and blameless for the looming crisis. Third, why was this deadly chemical approved? Why are the PCA and DA endorsing it? Fernando Maldeva, chair and president of LEADS Agricultural Products Inc., which markets the expensive chemical, is the fraternity brother of Dr. Rey Velasco, a PCA consultant, according to an Inquirer report.

There will be billions of pesos in income for LEADS and its government endorsers to lace millions of trees with chemicals.

Please, Mr. President, stop these people with hidden motives. Abolish EO 169. Stop the “chemicalization” of the coconut industry. The PCA is reportedly poised to implement the “solution” on a massive scale starting this month. It is not too late. The death of the industry will be blamed on you. The lives of millions of coconut-dependent Filipinos are in your hands.

—BERNIE V. LOPEZ, [email protected]