The country's biosafety authorities reaffirmed its science-based regulations, in a public consultation held on 29 April 2008 at the Department of Agriculture (DA) headquarters. The Departments of Agriculture, Science and Technology, Environment and Natural Resources, Health and the National Committee on Biosafety of the Philippines jointly prepared the First Philippine Cartagena Report, in consultation with stakeholders, to support the national policy of promoting the safe and responsible use of modern biotechnology.

The biosafety report covered information in the implementation of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CPB), to which the Philippines became a party on January 2007. These information include legal and administrative measures; procedures for advanced informed agreement and direct use as food, feed or processing; risk assessment and risk management; unintentional transboundary movement; illegal transboundary movement; handling, transport, packaging, and identification; biosafety clearing house; confidential information; capacity building; public awareness and participation; non-parties; socio-economic considerations; and financial mechanism and resources.

Though a new player, the Philippines has already put in place legal, administrative and other measures that are compliant with the CPB. To date, the Philippines has approved genetically modified crops for release to environment and propagation namely, corn-borer resistant corn, glyphosate-tolerant corn, and a corn having corn-borer resistance and glyphosate-tolerance. For genetically modified products for direct use as food, feed, or for processing, a total of 48 approvals/permit have been granted.

The Bureau of Plant Industry of the DA also explained the sampling procedures and rigid GMO-testing done for unapproved events in the current shipment of rice from the USA. The results showed negative presence of unapproved events. Greenpeace Southeast Asia Sustainable Agriculture campaigner Daniel Ocampo admitted that their samples did not come from the shipment that was tested by the BPI.

BPI director Joel Rudinas, on the other hand, encouraged stakeholders to support the implementation of the regulations in their respective domains. Should there be perceived implementation gaps, he requested that official reports be transmitted to their office for appropriate action. He also invited stakeholders to possible collaborative activities in order to further promote transparency in biosafety-decision making.

The consultation elicited valuable inputs from stakeholders coming from the academe, research and development agencies, non-government organizations which included Greenpeace, Third World Network, Earthsavers, Philippine Council for Sustainable Development, Philippine Seed Industry Association, Crop Life Philippines, Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines, and private sectors - a positive indication of an assured multi-sectoral participation in biosafety initiatives.