Mango fruit fly turns out to be Australian in origin

The trade war between the Philippines and Australia took a new twist after the Department of Agriculture revealed yesterday that the Philippine mango fruit fly is in fact a descendant of the Queensland fruit fly.

For a long time now, Australia had been exporting fruits to the Philippines infested with the Queensland fruit fly. And these fruit flies have adapted to local conditions and later became the Philippine mango fruit fly, which is the reason why Australia refuses to allow Philippine mangoes to enter its territory.

As this developed, the House committee on agriculture expressed its support to a move of the Department of Agriculture to file a trade complaint with the WTO against the unfair trade practices of Australia.

Congressman Angelito Sarmiento, committee chairman, said he will file a resolution urging the President to make firm stand in the WTO and to support those who file complaints against unfair trade practices committed against Filipinos.

Sarmiento expressed confidence that the entire House will support this resolution and Angara in his trade war with Australia and Belgium. "Australia is using sanitary and phytosanitary issues as an excuse to block entry of our local products. In a free trade, this is not fair," he said.

The government already filed a complaint with the WTO last month against Belgium after the latter ordered the pullout of all Philippine tuna products upon discovering that the cans contained bisphenol diglycedyl, a cancer-causing substance. The Philippines said Belgium was only retaliating after the former banned Belgian dairy and meat products containing dioxin, a known toxin.

President Estrada earlier approved a recommendation from the Department of Agriculture discouraging local traders from importing Australian farm products until such time that Australia opens its market to Philippine fruit exports.

Australia has raised several technicalities regarding the proposed exports of Philippine fruits, particularly mango, into Australian territory. One of the issues being raised is the Philippines' inability to effectively treat its mangoes against fruit flies.

The government, through the Bureau of Plant Industry, has recommended the use of vapor heat treatment (VHT) to treat Philippine mangoes for export against fruit flies. VHT is also used to treat mangoes for export to Japan. However, Australia wants the Philippines to conduct VHT trials and rejected BPI's proposal that the test results used in the case of Japan be adopted.

Agriculture Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban said Australia has yet to contain its own Queensland fruit fly. "This fruit fly is endemic to Australia. And some of the fruits Australia has been shipping to us carried this pest. Due to weak plant quarantine set-up on the Philippine side, a problem we are now trying to address, the pest had landed on our shores, got adapted to our local environment and since then became the fruit fly which Australia is now worrying about whenever we attempt to export our mangoes to that country's," Panganiban said.

The DA official noted that negotiations with Australia on the entry of fresh mangoes from the Philippines started way back in 1992. Back then, sanitary and health studies and other quarantine-related topics related to fresh mango exports had been jointly conducted by the Philippines and four of its then target markets: South Korea, Japan, United States, and Australia.

South Korea and Japan, since the mid-1990s, have opened their markets for Philippine fresh mangoes. For its part, the US had already expressed its intention to buy Philippine mangoes, with such plan to be formalized in November or December this year.

"Disgustingly, Australia has never indicated its timetable of acceptance of our mangoes," Panganiban said.

In the case of bananas and pineapples, the DA noted that the Australia has imposed a very lengthy process for undertaking pest risk analysis. This has prevented these fruits from being exported to Australia.

For the past six years, the Philippines has been a net importer of goods from Australia. From January to November 1999, imports from Australia were valued at $688 million as against exports to Australia of $205 million. Agricultural imports, mostly dairy products and live animals, were valued at $136.2 million.

The Philippines has also expressed concern over Australia's restriction on the use of benzoic acid as a preservative in sauces, saying there is no international standard for benzoic acid and no conclusive findings that it is harmful to human health. Australia has banned the export of Philippine fish sauce or patis because it uses benzoic acid as preservative.

The government also noted that Australia's practice is inconsistent with the World Trade Organization (WTO) sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS), agreement, noting that it allows imports of products from New Zealand containing benzoic acid.