Zubiri: Other PH fruits may suffer same fate as bananas over Shoal row

Former Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri. File photo

DAVAO CITY — Former Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri has warned that Philippine tropical fruits being sent to China could also suffer the fate of Cavendish bananas.

“Bureau of Plant Industry officials said they’ve received information that Chinese quarantine authorities have suddenly started discovering suspected mealybugs in some of our pineapple and papaya exports,” Zubiri, who was in the city Friday, told reporters.

He said there was no information yet if Beijing would also deny entry to Philippine pineapples and bananas due to the supposed discovery of the bugs but it might not be remote, considering that Chinese authorities had barred Philippine bananas from entering for the same reason.

Zubiri said Beijing’s action against Philippine exports was indeed the result of the dispute over the Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal.

“It has unnecessarily strained relations with China and created potentially nasty side issues where there used to be none,” he said.

Zubiri also criticized the Aquino government for acting like “a student government.”

“A student appears to be conducting our affairs with China, complete with [anti-China] rallies by pro-administration groups.

“Meanwhile, our fruit export and tourism industries risk being set back by needless Chinese restrictions,” he said.

He said Malacañang should push for high-level bilateral talks with China to ease the tension over the Panatag shoal and normalize trade and tourism between the two countries.

“Government should avoid engaging Beijing in a bottomless tit for tat. Effective diplomacy at the highest levels has become absolutely imperative to quickly stabilize relations,” Zubiri said.

Stephen Antig, president of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters (Pbgea), said unless the issue with China was settled, the banana industry would incur further losses, especially so that the coming months of June, July and August are considered the peak of the harvest season.

Currently, Antig said the surplus stood at 1.2 million boxes and the losses since March, when Chinese authorities started rejecting in-coming shipments of bananas from the Philippines, was at P1 billion.

In fact, stacks of rotting bananas were found on the roadside near a banana plantation in Davao del Norte.

“Davao will be smelling like vinegar in the near future if this trend continues,” Antig said.

The biggest problem, he said, was when banana plantations go out of business.

“If the problem continues, start counting the unemployed by July. Expect a bleak Christmas for those in the banana industry,” he said.

China remains the country’s second largest Philippine banana importer after Japan.

In 2011, some $786.72 million worth of fresh Cavendish bananas passed through the Davao port alone for China, according to the Bureau of Customs.

Marizon Loreto, director of the Department of Trade and Industry in Southern Mindanao, said Filipinos must learn to eat Cavendish bananas to help the industry survive.

But Loreto admitted that Filipinos have to overcome first the notion that Cavendish bananas were “food for the hogs” to be able to do so.

“We, Filipinos, should start eating class A Cavendish bananas, which are very healthy,” Loreto told reporters here.

Loreto said in contrast to the “food for hogs” mentality, class A Cavendish was considered one of the best bananas in the world.