Dad bats for strict meat inspection

With the rise in the demand for meat, Cebu City Councilor Edgardo Labella has urged the Department of Veterinary Medicine and Fisheries and the National Meat Inspection Service to conduct thorough meat inspection in the city’s markets to ensure that the people are eating safe and clean meat.

 In a proposed resolution, the councilor expressed concern that some unscrupulous individuals may exploit the high demand for meat by selling “hot meat.”

 “Perhaps one way to ensure that only clean meat will be bought by consumers in the markets and other commercial outlets this Christmas season is by way of determining if the people selling meat or by-products of food animals have meat inspection certificates duly issued by the concerned government agency.

 “Hot meat” is generally considered as health-threatening and unsafe for human consumption since most of them came from illegally slaughtered animals. Among these are the “double dead meat” being passed off as coming from live and healthy animals prior to the slaughter.

 “It would also greatly help, if not totally eliminate, the illegal distribution and and retailing of so-called meat unfit for human consumption in Cebu City if slaughterhouses will be conscientiously monitored so that no illegal slaughter of food animals including non-food animals will occur,” Labella said, citing City Ordinance No. 1582, or the Meat for Public Consumption Regulatory Ordinance.

 By strictly implementing the ordinance, he said the surreptitious entry of hot meat into the city could also be prevented if a concerted effort would be undertaken by the concerned government agencies tasked to safeguard public health.

He added that these products, if consumed by the public, could cause diseases that are dangerous to the people’s health.

 “Common sense dictates that flexing the enforcement muscle relative to the mentioned ordinance by the concerned government agencies would indeed go a long way in seeing to it that the general public will be amply safeguarded from the health risks posed by the consumption of the hot meat sold by the alleged unscrupulous individuals,” Labella said in his proposed measure.

 Likewise, he said the city government has institutionalized the Meat Inspection Service in order to provide consumers with safe meat. — Wenna A. Berondo/LPM