SEVENTEEN more locally sold food products, including popular children's snacks and meat products, have been tested and found to contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the environmentalist group Greenpeace revealed yesterday.

Beau Baconguis, Greenpeace Southeast Asia engineering campaigner, said the 17 were among 36 products shipped by his organization to Hong Kong DNA Chips Ltd., an independent testing laboratory in Hong Kong, for testing for GMOs.

Baconguis said of the 36 products, 17 or 47.12 percent were found positive for various genetically modified DNA sequences.

The products were identified as Granny Goose Tortillos Chili Flavor, Granny Goose Kornets Barbecue Flavor, Bocaditos Tortilla Chips Shashlik Flavor, Prime Corn Starch, Food Fair Quality Corn Starch, Magnolia Chicken Chunks in Brine, Holiday Corned Beef, Purefoods Gusto Sausage, Purefoods Liver Spread, Campo Carne Chicken Vienna Sausage, Campo Carne Chinese Luncheon Meat, Butterfinger, Argentina Corned Beef, Argentina Beef Loaf, CDO Karne Norte Pinoy Style Guisado, Quality Foods Big N' Tastee Hotdog, and Pokka Soya Bean Drink.

Baconguis said the latest findings brought to 46 the number of identified GMO-contaminated products produced locally or sold in the country. The manufacturers of the earlier found products, including Gerber's Baby Food and Novartis, had pledged to stop sending GMO-tainted products to the Philippines.

On Feb. 3, Greenpeace activists blocked a ship carrying 17,000 tons of genetically engineered (GE) soybeans from the United States bound for the General Milling Corp.

"The Filipino public will continue to consume risky genetically engineered food with neither their knowledge nor consent if government does not act swiftly and decisively to label them," Baconguis said in a news conference.

Baconguis said government's inaction on mandatory labeling requirements has allowed corporations to "take on the role of mad scientists playing with Filipino consumers as their experimental rats."