Legal Arguments on Agri-Biotechnology: Content Analysis of Legal Documents Related to the Bt Eggplant Case

This study aims to analyze the legal discourse on biotechnology, with particular interest on the Bt eggplant case in the Philippines. The Supreme Court (SC) decision on this case in December 2015 drew attention of varying perspectives on biotechnology. The court decision primarily dealt on halting the field testing of Bt eggplant in field experiment sites in different parts of the country. The media had a fair share in reporting the complexities of biotechnology based on the SC decision that raised public discussion on science-based and socially constructed notions of biotechnology. The public was then flooded with information from studies and insights of scientists and non-specialists, which in turn contributed to either having informed or misinformed decisions pertaining to biotechnology issues. However, this study does not focus on reportage or framing of biotechnology in the media. Instead, it sheds light on the arguments set forth in a legal setting about a natural science knowledge-based issue, which is agricultural biotechnology or agri-biotechnology. The implications of the SC decision instigated an interest in looking at a particular profession, the lawyers, who at the onset may not be direct stakeholders but are significant in advancing biotechnology in general, or agri-biotechnology in particular. Biotechnology involves risk management, hence, regulatory and policy inferences are inevitable in raising arguments in a legal discourse. However, it should not also be undermined that biotechnology is a science issue in which there needs to be a balance in looking at it from both a science and regulatory perspectives.