Anti-GMO in Manila

The National Consumer Affairs Council (NCAC), Consumer Rights for Safe Food (CRSF) and other members of No2GMO network welcome anti-GMO advocate Jeffrey Smith to Manila for a series of talks with legislators, businessmen, academe and consumers. 

Smith is the author of best-selling books Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette, which document the harmful impact of genetically modified organisms or GMOs on health and the environment.

In the past year, GMOs have been in both local and international news.  Last May 17, 2013, the Court of Appeals ordered the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to permanently stop the field trials of Bacillus thuriengensis (Bt) eggplants. As CA Associate Justice Isaias Dicdican asserted, the trials “could not be declared by this Court as safe to human health and to our ecology with full scientific certainty being an alteration of an otherwise natural state of affairs in our ecology.”

Japan recently banned the importation of American Wheat after it was discovered that GM wheat which was field tested but abandoned 10 years ago was growing wild in an Oregon farm. China also recently rejected American GMO as they were not accompanied by the appropriate environmental and food safety tests conducted by Chinese institutions.  Hungary burned 1000 acres of crops after it was found to be contaminated with GMO corn.

According to Smith, “64 countries require labeling of genetically engineered foods or ban them out right. The state legislatures of Connecticut and Maine just passed labeling laws, and more than two dozen other states have introduced similar legislation. Nine out of 10 Americans want genetically engineered foods labeled, and 53 percent say they would avoid GMOs if they were labeled.”

“Now thousands of US physicians are prescribing non-GMO diets to their patients. Without labels, it’s difficult for patients to follow their doctors’ advice. But when they do remove GMOs, we hear consistent reports of recoveries from of a wide variety of diseases and disorders. The characteristics of the GM crops —plants that produce a toxic insecticide or absorb toxic herbicide —are predisposed to create disorders such as autoimmune disease, allergies, and asthma; gastrointestinal disorders, infertility; and organ damage. We also hear numerous reports of cognitive and behavioral problems in children related to GMOs in their diets. Farmers and veterinarians also describe similar health improvements in livestock where GM soy and corn has been replaced by non-GM varieties,” Smith added.

Consumer groups led by Consumer Rights for Safe Food (CRSF) has urged the government to require labeling for genetically modified crops and processed food with GM ingredients.  Grace Chua of CRSF said, “genetically modified crops are being approved in the Philippines at such alarming rates. GMOs like the BT talong and Golden Rice are currently being field tested and developed.  It is the first time GMOs will be fed directly to humans in spite of the growing scientific evidence of the ill effects of GMOs to health.  Just like the GMOs which were initially developed to be used as animal feeds, no tests on its effect on our health will be done before it is commercialized.  Like consumers all over the world, we are demanding our right to know if the food we are buying contains GMOs so we can have the option to avoid it.”

More big boys

What does it say about the Philippines and Filipinos now that the “big boys” are in Manila?

After the entry of British luxury carmaker Bentley comes another British high-end brand Rolls-Royce which would soon ply the streets of Manila through a dealership in the Philippines, the first ever in the country.

Today will be the official dealer appointment ceremony for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Manila which will also be graced by the Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Asia Pacific team who will talk about their plans. The team includes Paul Harris, Asia-Pacific regional director, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars; Herfried Hasenoehrl, general manager for emerging markets-Asia; and Brenda Pek, head of marketing , Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.

The appointment is part of the company’s Asia Pacific expansion plans and signals the growing demand for Rolls-Royce cars in the Southeast Asian region.

In April, Harris was quoted as saying that the company would open the showroom facilities by the fourth quarter of the year.

Recently, Bentley opened its very first showroom in the Philippines under a partnership with luxury car distributor PGA Automobile Inc.

Bentley Manila is the British brand’s 52nd country and 183rd dealership worldwide.

It is estimated that the luxury market in the Philippines sells between 2,000 and 3,000 units a year.

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has just unveiled its latest model, Wraith, a two-door fastback coupé and the most powerful, dynamic car in the brand’s history at the Geneva Motor Show.

More good news

The market for printing devices in the Philippines grew 34.5 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2013, rendering the country the most upbeat market in Asia/Pacific which, in contrast, contracted for the sixth quarter in a row and dropped by 7.6 percent.

According to the International Data Corp. (IDC), about 233,400 units of single and multifunction printers (MFP) and copiers were shipped in the first quarter compared with only 174,000 units in the same period last year.

Of the quarter’s total, eight out of 10 were of inkjet technology while laser and serial dot matrix (SDM) accounted for the remaining 12.9 percent and seven percent, respectively. Further, total market revenue hit an all-time high of $48.2 million in the first quarter.

Pamela Sumanga, market analyst for IDC, explains that this trend was made possible by healthy demand motivated by the bullish outlook of the economy.

She said consumer and commercial products (i.e., inkjet and laser printing devices) have demonstrated double-digit growth rates YoY and beat expectations due to the end-users’ receptiveness to vendors’ initiatives around PC bundling, price drops, and trade-in promotions to name a few.

She added that on the other hand, were more open to take in fresh stocks from vendors due to prospects of better sales on the retail front and corporate side as IT investments are projected to pick up, given the confidence on the economy.

The manner at which the local printing market grew at the start of the year strengthened the earlier projections of growth after two successive years of decline.

IDC said in a report that from 2011 to 2012, the local printing market was weighed down by the changes in the product line-ups, strategies of vendors, and usage behaviour of end-users. With that adjustment period behind and the indications of renewed end-user demand, IDC projects the Philippine HCP market to likely grow by 5.3 percent in 2013 to reach about 802,000 units, it said.

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