Yap approves terms for revival of National Codex Committee

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap has approved the terms of reference (TOR) for the revival of the National Codex Committee (NCC) through the issuance of Special Order 100 Series of 2005 that also paves the way for the creation of an executive committee to work on the country’s compliance with global food safety requirements.

The critical features of the approved TOR include the previous recommendations of the National Agricultural and Fishery Council (NAFC) ad hoc committee for the reactivation of the NCC, such as establishing mechanisms for integrating Codex decisions and activities into the programs of food control agencies, and those of other government and non-government organizations involved in food safety standards.

The ad hoc group also recommended Dr. Alicia O. Lustre, director of the Food Development Center, as head or interim chairperson and Enrique Carlos, chairperson of the NAFC committee on fisheries and aquaculture, as co-chair of the NCC technical committee.

The committee stressed the urgency of institutionalizing the NCC and ensure that Codex standards are integrated into the national food control program.

The committee said the NCC’s reactivation is critical because local food exports face the grim prospect of losing its dollar-generating agriculture and fishery exports because of the tightening of global food security regulations.

The NCC has been dormant for four years. It previously monitored all relevant food safety regulations being imposed by international bodies such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC), an international body organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to establish food standards for the protection of consumer health and ensure fari practices in food trade.

The ad hoc committee said the formation of the NCC has become urgent since Codex texts have assumed almost quasi-legal status as the international reference for food safety measures under the World Trade Organization agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary measures.

Codex texts are documents which include standards, guidelines, codes of practice and other measures adopted by the CAC.

The NCC before served as an advisory body on food standardization and control issues arising from issuance of CAC rules.

Its other functions included preparing the country’s official stand on all matters pertaining to new food standards set by these agencies. It also lobbied against moves to impose non-tariff barriers to the country’s exports of agricultural and fishery products.

The proposed government inter-agency members of the ad-hoc committee are the Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Product Standards (BAFPS), National Meat Inspection Commission (NMIC), Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Philippine Coconut Authority, National Food Authority’s Food Development Center (FDC), Bureau of Animal Industry, Bureau of Plant Industry and the Bureau of Food and Drugs Administration. The private sector will initially be represented by the San Miguel Corp. and the Seaweed Industry Association of the Philippines (SIAP).

Reviving the NCC should boost the government’s efforts to consolidate its resources in fending off non-tariff barriers being imposed by the US and European Union through stringent rules for the entry of fresh and processed food products from the Philippines.

Between February 2003 and January 2004, the US Food and Drug Administration directed the US Bureau of Customs to ban the entry of more than 500 processed food exports, such as instant noodles and shrimp paste for failure to comply with quality standards.

The EU on the other hand, while reducing the maximum limit on aflatoxin content in copra meal from 200 parts per billion (pbb) to only 20 parts per billion (pbb), the EU also successfully lobbied for the CAC to cut the maximum allowable hydrocarbon content in coconut oil to only two to 12 pbb from 47 pbb.

Earlier efforts to reactivate the NCC was stalled by BAFPS which is objecting to the inclusion of the private sector in the executive committee of NCC.

BAFPS insisted that the new NCC set up will not just add another bureaucratic layer in the regulatory system since an executive committee would be created in the process, but could also pose potential conflicts of interests with the addition of private sector representatives.