By Jade D. Miguel
MANILA, Nov 24 (PNA) — With the current legal case of genetically modified organism (GMO) eggplant crop at the Supreme Court (SC) with regard to the Writ of Kalikasan filed by environmental activist group Greenpeace against the field testing of Bt eggplant, the University of the Philippines Los Banos (UPLB) College of Agriculture Dean Domingo Angeles appealed for the non-restriction of research to further improve the country’s utilization of technology.
The biotechnology experts from UPLB are the ones involved the case against Greenpeace.
“The reaseon why we do research essentially is to find out whether these technologies are safe or not. Whether these technologies can or cannot protect our environment. If we will be hindered for doing our research, I think it would not be a good thing for us. It is an upfront to academic freedom that we enjoy in the university,” Angeles said.
He further emphasized that a university’s role is to research, generate new knowledge and technologies according to the needs of the country. It is the “basic improving of life research,” he added.
“Much of what we have attained over the last sixty years [in terms of technology] we can attribute to research,” the Agriculture dean said.
According to Angeles, the country’s population will double by 2055 with a two percent rate of increase in population.
With the rising number of population, Angeles felt the need to improve the country’s production and that could be done through a bigger investment on research.
The Agriculture dean also encouraged the university’s researchers to unleash their creativity amidst the challenges being faced by science and technology research as it would improve the state of our farmers.
“I hope there would be no more hindrance to our continuous research and search for technological options for our farmers,” Angeles stressed. (PNA)