Hog raisers happy over removal of 2 agri execs

CEBU, Philippines - After two agriculture executives were relieved from their posts yesterday, Visa-yan hog raisers and pork producers expressed “temporary” victory in their campaign against unhampered meat importation while waiting for the replacement of the sacked officials.

Bureau of Animal Industry Director Efren Nuestro and National Meat Inspection Service Director Jane Bacayo were removed from their respective post in response to the demands of the local growers who incessantly complained on technical smuggling of meat in the wet markets.

Nuestro was removed from his post since he was a career executive service officer while Bacayo resigned on Wednesday while facing charges of graft and corruption and dereliction of duty filed by Agham Partylist Representative Angelo Palmones.

Swine Development Council – Visayas Director and President of Central Visayas Pork Producers Cooperative Rolando Tambago said that hog raisers and pork producers filed recommendations to the Department of Agriculture for Nuestro’s dismissal since he was primarily responsible for the issuance of permits of imported meat in the country.

He also said that after a year and a half of sending their proposals to the national office, it was only now that the government acted on it, adding that DA Secretary Proceso Alcala was even surprised since he has not received anything. 

Despite the government’s late response, he said that the hog industry welcomed the good news but is still in a battle mode against the total eradication of smuggled meat.

He said that the Administrative Order 5 is already being reviewed by DA after hog raisers have labelled it as favorable to meat importers since it limits the sale of pork to eight hours after the pig is slaughtered.

After American meat associations protested against AO 22 due to discrimination of imported products, Tambago said that the formulation of AO 5 restricts local producers without proper consultation from them.

“Mura’g wala giprotektahan ang local industry. Kami na unta ang protekta-han, kami na nuon ang gi-restrict (It’s like the local industry is not protected. We are supposed to be protected but we are the ones being restricted),” Tambago said in a phone interview.

Moreover, he said that Alcala ordered to stop accrediting new importers as the existing list of importers is being reviewed for purging.

Over the 100 importers in the country, the Swine Development Council revealed that one of the top 10 importers only had P31,000 as capital but imported pork and chicken meat amounting to P650 million which is considered to be technical smuggling.

After Customs Commissioner Rufino Biazon implemented 100% inspection of imported meat, he said that the hog industry has been more vigilant, hoping that the implementation would not only be good for a short period of time. — Grace Melanie I. Lacamiento/FPL (THE FREEMAN)