A struggle for control beyond the facts: examining constructs of GM technology in Philippine opinion columns

ABSTRACT

GM technology has constantly faced opposition in the Philippines. The debate heightened in 2016, when the Supreme Court halted the field testing of Bt eggplant, which triggered a public debate. This ruling was overturned, but GM technology remained in the public consciousness because of the general visibility of science, health, and food security issues. The researcher analyzed opinion columns in major Philippine news outlets from 2016-present to examine candid framings of the GM debate. Through inductive analysis, the researcher found that the debate represents a struggle for control. The crops are not so much monsters as they are hyperbolic jokes that do not meet their promises; they too, represent a foreign industrial invader that can be countered only by contextualized and localized farming. These findings add nuance to our understanding of the GM debate in the Global South.

Keywords:

• Opinion columns
• opinions on GMOs
• opinions on GM technology
• philippines and GMOs
• risk communication
• science communication

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This publication was made possible through funding from Ateneo de Manila University’s Office of the Associate Vice President for Research, Creative Work, and Innovation and the Rizal LIbrary Open Access Publication Grant