The Negros Organic Agriculture Movement is set to announce today plans to file a class suit against the continued use of endosulfan, Renato Bañas of the NOAM secretariat said yesterday.

The recent sea tragedy involving the M/V Princes of the Stars brought to fore the danger posed by toxic pesticides, he said in a letter to Board Member Mae Javellana,  Negros Occidental Sanggunian Committee on Environment chairperson.

In this case the danger comes from the supply of endosulfan in the cargo hold of the vessel that sank in the waters off Sibuyan Island, he said.

Bañas said they are asking Javellana to initiate a resolution in the Sanggunian in support of their initiative against endosulfan.

Bañas said their call is line with the NOAM advocacy that is anchored on the call of the Negros Occidental and Oriental provincial governments to make Negros Island the organic food bowl of Asia.

Senator Loren Legarda yesterday also called for a Senate investigation on the lax implementation of the production, importation and use of toxic substances like endosulfan in the light of the discovery that the MV Princess of the Stars had the pesticide in its cargo hold.

Legarda in Senate Resolution 486 asked the Senate Committee on the Environment and Natural Resources to probe the implementation of Republic Act 6969, otherwise known as the Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Waste Control Act.

Three years since RA 6969's passage, endosulfan was among those banned by the Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority due to its acute and chronic effects to health and the environment, Legarda said in a press statement.

After two years, the ban was lifted by the FPA and permission to use and manufacture endosulfan was issued for a period of two years to impede a dreaded disease that endangered the country's pineapple industry, she said.

Legarda said that endosulfan should be banned in the country once and for all as it poses danger to humans and most living organisms.

"The Stockholm Convention has already initiated actions toward the inclusion of endosulfan as a persistent organic pollutant considering that the chemical is a long-ranging transboundary air pollutant and recognized as a persistent toxic substance by the United Nations Environmental Program," she said.*CPG

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