By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas & Henry Empeño
THE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has approved the Bureau of Animal Industry’s (BAI) proposal to allocate P85.14 million to strengthen quarantine measures against African swine fever (ASF), according to the Department of Agriculture (DA).
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol confirmed to the BusinessMirror that the DBM has given its nod to the fund, which will be included in the 2020 budget for the government’s ASF-prevention plan dubbed BABES.
“BABES” stands for ban pork imports, avoid swill feeding, block entry at international ports, educate our people and submit samples.
Joy O. Lagayan, BAI veterinarian and member of the country’s ASF Task Force, told the BusinessMirror that the fund will be used for “capacity building, border control, prevention and detection.”
Lagayan earlier told the BusinessMirror that P42 million of the P85.14 million will be used to improve the BAI’s laboratory power, procure test kits, conduct seminars and workshops on ASF, and conduct an information campaign on the fatal swine disease.
The remaining fund will go to strengthening the government’s quarantine measures, including the deployment of meat-sniffing dogs.
Pork Producers Federation of the Philippines Inc. President Edwin G. Chen commended the DBM for supporting the government’s quarantine measure to protect the country’s P200-billion hog industry.
The government is keen on protecting its borders from ASF as the fatal hog disease has reached neighboring Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia where it killed millions of swine. The virus has killed hogs in Hong Kong and North Korea.
On Tuesday, Piñol issued a memorandum circular advising shipping and forwarding companies to refuse meat and canned meat products from ASF-affected countries.
This, he said, seeks to “complement and strengthen the coherent efforts of various agencies in preventing the entry of ASF virus in the country.”
The ASF is fatal to swine, which can die in about two days, but is not harmful to human beings. There is no known vaccine against the disease.
Meatballs from China
Meanwhile, authorities at the Port of Subic have confiscated some P600,000 worth of meat products from China, as the government tightened monitoring and quarantine procedures in all ports to prevent the entry of ASF into the country.
Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chairman Wilma T. Eisma said Subic port officials seized last Wednesday a meat shipment consigned to a company in Makati City after learning it was shipped from Guangzhou, China.
“It was immediately flagged by the quarantine officer from the Department of Agriculture, and then the Bureau of Customs confiscated the shipment,” Eisma explained.
She said the confiscated meat will be immediately destroyed, as recommended by the Bureau of Quarantine, with the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) disposing of it at the expense of the consignee.
Eisma said the Port of Subic has been on the lookout for meat products from countries hit by ASF after the government called for strict monitoring in all ports of entry.
According to Jerome Martinez, manager of the SBMA Seaport Department, the meat products from China were shipped in a refrigerated van aboard MV Hansa Altenburg, a container ship that arrived in Subic on May 27.
The container van was declared to contain 2,385 packages of “food items” with a dutiable value of P591,817.90. The first layer of the food items consisted of boxes of tofu, but beneath this first layer were all meat products.
Martinez said the confiscated meat will be injected with chemicals and buried underground.
China is among the 16 countries on the watch list of areas affected by the ASF, which the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) has declared to be a highly contagious hemorrhagic viral disease affecting domestic and wild pigs.
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered the recall and seizure of imported pork meat products from countries suspected to be affected by the ASF virus.
These included China, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania,
Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam, Zambia, South Africa, Czech Republic, Bulgaria,
Cambodia, Mongolia, Moldova
and Belgium.