IT DOES not stand to reason that the University of the Philippines Mindanao would waste time, money and effort in experimenting with the lowly eggplant, which grow anywhere in any kind of soil and even in the most adverse climatic condition in this part of the globe. Assuming that they have genetically modified eggplant UPMin achieved nothing except the credit of successfully threatening the otherwise well-adapted native eggplant variety to creepy vegetable.

UPMin should stop this stupidity as the exercise is nothing but a gross insanity. This institution is merely wasting peoples' money on the experiment. They have not made clear their objectives of having to alter the genetic makeup of our eggplant which is so easy to grow. Among the veggies which we are taught to grow during our gardening period during our primary and elementary grades was how to prepare the seeds of ripe tomatoes and eggplants. We dry the seeds which come aplenty from a single fruit and plant these in seedbeds. In time hundreds of plantlets emerge and we select only the robust seedling for our garden. We do this in school as well as in our homes.

Before the owner of the land in front of our house in Guadalupe Village fenced the vacant lot, I grew eggplant, tomatoes, bell peppers and kangkong there, no sweat. Eggplants bear luxuriantly fruits even without being fertilized. With what I was taught and saw from childhood up to this time nothing seemed perplexing that would prod an institution of education to genetically modify a robustly growing talong that we love to eat boiled or broiled with bagoong or as an add-on to our favorite tinola or sinigang.

Davao City Mayor Inday Sara Duterte is correct in amplifying her objection to propagate GT eggplant in the UP campus in Mintal. The UPMin administration even had the temerity to insult the intelligence of Mayor Inday by setting up cyclone wires around their experimental field. C'mon professors, if the pollens from the plant is not encapsulated these can either be blown by the wind or carried by insects that would lead to crossbreeding and ultimately banish our native talong.

We are happy that we have UPMin in Davao but we should not countenance the Jekyll and Hyde adventurism in this institution. The students must stand against this as this is not a measure of genius. Like Frankenstein in the movies this is a symptom of insanity.