The country is unlikely to commercialise a transonic variety, resistant to bacterial leaf blight disease, on which it conducted field trials this year, said Leo Sebastian, executive director of the state-funded Philippine Rice Research Institute.
"Unfortunately, the variety in which the transonic gene was placed is not very popular among the country's consumers, farmers and millers," Sebastian told Reuters in an interview, referring to the IR-72 variety.
"It's not commercially viable.
We are trying to find other varieties. You cannot do genetic transformation in every variety. Our scientists have tried transforming other popular varieties but they have so far not been as successful as the IR-72 variety."
The Philippines is Asia's first nation to commercialise genetically modified corn. The Southeast Asian nation, along with India and China, has been aggressively pushing research on a few varieties of genetically modified rice in recent years. But Greenpeace and other groups have stepped up protests on the government's plan to push biotech crops, saying they threaten consumer health and the environment.
And as the Philippines struggles to find ways of achieving self-sufficiency in the food grain and reduce imports, Sebastian said the country's aim of commercialising genetically modified rice within two years now looked difficult.
"It will be very optimistic now to say two years. The pace, at which we are going, it could take up to five years," he added.
The Philippines is not the only nation whose plans have suffered setbacks. China is also facing hurdles and is unlikely to approve a transonic variety this year, as expected.
"We don't have more field trials planned this year," Sebastian said.
"But the International Rice Research Institute is holding trials. If they are successful with varieties acceptable to consumers then we can probably push for commercialisation."
The opposition to GMO food crops is many stronger than for crops such as cotton and feed crops such as corn. Last year, Monsanto Co dropped plans to introduce the world's first GMO wheat, after world-wide protests.
"Commercialising transonic corn in the Philippines was much easier since most of those go into animal feed and are not consumed by humans.