08/08/2026
𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗔𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗥𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗨𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴: 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝘀𝗮𝗳𝗲𝘁𝘆 𝗯𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗼 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲
Thirteen years ago today, on 8 August 2013, farmers, Indigenous Peoples, rural women, youth, scientists, environmental advocates, and local communities gathered in Camarines Sur to uproot the field trial of genetically modified (GM) Golden Rice. More than an act of protest, the uprooting was a collective assertion that decisions capable of transforming agriculture, biodiversity, public health, and food systems must never be removed from democratic scrutiny nor imposed upon farming communities under the guise of scientific inevitability.
For thirteen years, the Golden Rice uprooting has been portrayed by its critics as an attack on science. Yet history has unfolded differently. Rather than diminishing its significance, the years that followed have revealed the very questions that the farmers and communities raised in 2013: Who decides what technologies enter our fields? Who bears the risks when things go wrong? And who should have the power to regulate technologies that may irreversibly affect biodiversity, ecosystems, and future generations?
The legal battles that followed did not merely revisit the controversy over a single genetically modified crop but rather completed the unravelling of the profound weaknesses of the country's GMO regulatory and risk assessment system. In 2023, the Supreme Court issued a Writ of Kalikasan, and in April 2024, the Court of Appeals granted the privilege of the Writ, ordering the cessation of the commercial propagation and related activities involving Golden Rice and Bt Eggplant. In applying the precautionary principle, the Court recognized that where scientific uncertainty persists over potential environmental and health harms, the protection of constitutional rights and ecological integrity must prevail.
More importantly, the Court's ruling exposed the weaknesses of the Philippine government's current biosafety system, particularly Joint Department Circular No. 1, Series of 2021 (JDC 2021-1). Instead of protecting the Filipino people's constitutional right to a balanced and healthful ecology from the possible risks of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the current rules have too often worked as a rubber stamp, making it easier to approve GMOs than to carefully examine their long-term impacts on people, farmers, biodiversity, and the environment. It demonstrated that biosafety cannot remain dependent on a fragmented system where institutions tasked with promoting biotechnology are also entrusted with regulating its risks. The Golden Rice case did not end the biosafety debate but rather exposed why the Philippines urgently needs a People-Led Biosafety Law founded on independence, transparency, accountability, and meaningful participation by farmers, scientists, Indigenous Peoples, consumers, and local governments.
The struggle that began in Camarines Sur thirteen years ago continues across the country.
In Negros Island, farmers and civil society organizations remain vigilant against renewed efforts to introduce genetically modified crops despite the island's long-standing commitment to ecological agriculture and organic farming. Their continuing resistance reflects a broader determination to protect local biodiversity, farmer-managed seed systems, and the integrity of agroecological food production.
Meanwhile, in Oriental Mindoro, farmers, scientists, local governments, and people's organizations continue defending the province's GMO-free policy from persistent attempts to weaken or dismantle local biosafety protections. The campaign in Mindoro reminds us that biosafety begins with the right of communities to shape the future of their agriculture, protect their environment, conserve biodiversity, and determine the food systems that will nourish present and future generations.
At the same time, biotechnology continues to expand under the country's flawed biosafety framework. Even while Golden Rice remains under judicial restraint, regulators are moving forward with new genetically engineered products, including High Zinc Rice, another biofortified genetically modified rice promoted as a nutritional intervention. At the same time, Memorandum Circular No. 8 has further weakened biosafety oversight by exempting certain gene-edited plants from the full biosafety approval process, despite the continuing scientific debate over their potential environmental, health, and socioeconomic impacts. Together, these developments show that instead of learning from the lessons of the Golden Rice case, the government continues to open the door to new genetic technologies under a regulatory system whose weaknesses have already been exposed by the courts. The issue is no longer confined to Golden Rice or any single genetically modified organism; it is about whether the country has a biosafety system capable of independently assessing cumulative environmental, health, socioeconomic, and cultural impacts before irreversible decisions are made.
This challenge becomes even more urgent as agriculture enters the age of artificial intelligence, gene editing, synthetic biology, and increasingly automated biotechnology. AI is accelerating the design, development, and commercialization of genetically engineered organisms at unprecedented speed. While these technologies are promoted as innovations capable of addressing hunger, malnutrition, and climate change, they also multiply uncertainties, expand corporate control over agricultural technologies, and outpace the capacity of existing regulatory institutions. Without democratic oversight, precaution, and independent scientific evaluation, technological acceleration risks outstripping society's ability to govern its consequences.
The Philippines therefore needs more than incremental reforms. It needs a biosafety regime fundamentally reoriented toward the public interest. It must establish an independent biosafety system free from institutional conflicts of interest; fully operationalize the precautionary principle; require independent and transparent environmental, health, and socioeconomic impact assessments; uphold the authority of local governments to adopt stronger biosafety protections; recognize farmers' rights and Indigenous Peoples' rights as central pillars of biosafety governance; ensure public participation at every stage of decision-making; and establish clear liability for genetic contamination and environmental harm.
Indeed, biosafety cannot be reduced to laboratory data or confined to administrative procedures. It is inseparable from food sovereignty, environmental justice, farmers' rights, biodiversity conservation, and the constitutional right of every Filipino to a balanced and healthful ecology.
As we commemorate the thirteenth anniversary of the Golden Rice uprooting, we honor the courage of the farmers and communities who stood in defense of their fields, their seeds, and their future. Their action remains a powerful reminder that science must serve the people—not the other way around.
The struggle for biosafety did not end in that field thirteen years ago. It continues today in Negros, in Mindoro, and in every community defending biodiversity, seed sovereignty, and democratic control over agriculture.
Defend biodiversity. Uphold food sovereignty. Advance people's science by and for the Filipino farmers!
