The National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS) on Wednesday said it is eyeing to engage local government units (LGUs) to craft their respective meat safety ordinances as a measure to ensure the quality and proper hygiene of meat products sold in wet markets.
NMIS Executive Director Ernesto S. Gonzales said the absence of local meat inspection system ordinances put consumers’ health at risk, stressing there is no black-and-white regulation over proper meat handling.
“The local meat inspection system ordinances should have been already established. But a lot of local government units do not have it,” Gonzales said in an interview with reporters on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the 25th Meat Safety Consciousness Week on Monday.
“It is important to be able to properly regulate the distribution of meat locally. We are talking about meat safety here. That is our problem, [especially] in the provinces,” Gonzales added.
Gonzales said it is not the role of the NMIS to craft the local meat safety regulation, noting that such regulation appears not to be on the priority among most of the LGUs. “It seems it is not the priority of the LGUs. They should be the one doing it,” he said.
“That’s why we are now initiating the move. We have been saying for long that the functions of the NMIS have been devolved. But functionally, it has not happened. It is about time to empower the LGUs,” he added.
Gonzales said they would hold two dialogues in the first and second week of November with all LGU officials nationwide.
The NMIS would hold a meeting with all Luzon-based government officials first in Metro Manila, to be followed by the Visayas and later Mindanao officials in Cagayan de Oro.
“We are now initiating the move that’s why we have called a meeting of all local officials. I have submitted letters to all mayors and governors to give priority to the establishment of the local meat inspection system ordinance,” he said.
Gonzales said they plan to finish all the local meat inspection system ordinances by year-end. Gonzales added that local government officials have so far expressed support to the NMIS’s plans.
The local meat inspection system ordinances aim to address various handling and distribution concerns over meat products, according to Gonzales.
“Our number one problem right now is flooding. We have a problem of hygiene and sanitation in our wet markets,” he said.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes