Government: Local beef free of ‘mad cow’

An inter-agency task force on the mad cow disease assured the public anew yesterday that fresh beef sold in markets all over the country is safe since it comes from local sources.

According to task force spokesman and government physician Eric Tayag, local cattle are now being monitored for mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalo-pathy (BSE).

"Local cattle are now monitored for the disease. If mad cow disease is detected, confirmation will be done at a (United Kingdom) laboratory," Tayag said.

Tayag, chief of the Center for Infectious and Degenerative Diseases of the Department of Health (DOH), also assured the public that milk and other dairy products are safe since the agent that causes BSE can be found only in the lymph nodes and brain or nerve tissues.

Tayag also called on tra-velers coming from Europe to refrain from donating their blood to avoid any risk of spreading the human variant of BSE, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob, a degenerative disease.

Tayag is a member of the inter-agency task force composed of the departments of health, agriculture, trade and tndustry, interior and local government, and foreign affairs.

The task force was formed by Malacañang to assess the risk for BSE and to prevent and control the illness and its consequences to public health and the economy.

Agriculture Secretary Leonardo Montemayor also conducted an inspection of public markets in Metro Manila to assure the public that beef products in public markets are sourced locally.

"The meat stall owners have informed me that the meat they are selling are sourced from accredited slaughterhouses in Masbate and Batangas and have passed quarantine procedures conducted by the National Meat Inspection Commission," he said.

Even the meat used by food processors and fastfood chain operators are safe since their meat inputs are imported from disease-free countries like Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

"We are taking all the necessary steps to ensure that the health of our consumers is protected," Montemayor said, assuring the public that stricter measures are being implemented to ensure the safety of food products.

"The DA is enforcing stricter measures so that meat from Europe will not be sold in the public markets," he added.

Let them eat beef — Ople

Senate President Pro Tempore Blas Ople dared the government’s top health and agriculture officials yesterday to eat imported canned corned beef to assure the public that it is safe to eat.

"Assurance is not enough, they must follow the example in Cavite where local officials eat mussels to prove that red tide no longer exists," Ople said.

Ople asked Agriculture Secretary Leonardo Montemayor and Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit to stop importation of canned corned beef in line with a government ban on European beef products.

"What about the canned meat products? Are they safe to eat?" Ople asked, stressing the need for government to beef up its assistance to the local livestock and meat processing industries.

The government on Tuesday widened a ban on the importation of beef products from Europe because of a scare on mad cow disease and an outbreak in foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in Britain.

The mad cow disease scare initially caused local demand for beef products to slacken but improved after the government assured the people that local beef products are not affected by the disease.

To further assure the public, the government is also set to ship back 15 containers of beef products that were imported late last year from Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands.

The containers, which also included bone-meal, arrived at the end of last year and were held after its importers allegedly tried to sneak them out of the Port of Manila without proper permits.

But the embassies of European nations have asked the government to qualify its ban on European beef products, because not all European nations are affected by BSE and foot-and-mouth disease.

DFA Undersecretary Lauro Baja said European nations were worried Filipino consumers may develop a permanent perception that beef from their countries is unsafe to eat.

Baja said Irish Ambassador Declan Cannoly and other European diplomats also called on President Arroyo on Wednesday to clarify that Ireland is not affected by BSE at this time.

Denmark has also asked the government to lift its ban on Danish beef products.

The DA in November banned imports of live cattle, sheep and goats, their meat and meat products, bovine embryo, meat and bone meal and related food ingredients from 13 European countries due to a mad cow disease scare.

"Our country was not affected by the mad cow disease, but the DA banned the whole Europe" from shipping beef products to Manila, said an official from the Danish embassy.

The official argued that the ban was imposed on Danish beef "not because it was found out that they were contaminated" with either mad cow or foot-and-mouth diseases, but merely on "fears that they were contaminated."

But local farmers and fisherfolk urged the government to take the opportunity to review its liberalized policy on the importation of agricultural products.

Jun Luna, an official of the militant Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya), said the mad cow scare shows that the country’s import liberalization policy threatened not only the Filipino’s health but also the Filipino’s economic production.

Although the Philippines is ranked third in fish production all over Asia and 11th all over the world, the country continues to import even fish products such as "galunggong," Luna said.

Galunggong is a fish variety that used to be popular among Filipino households because of its relatively cheap price and availability.

He said the country has imported almost 400,000 kilos of galunggong last January while some 788,000 kilos of galunggong were imported by the government last February.

Despite his claims of being pro-poor, former President Joseph Estrada allowed the government to spend some P60 billion in his first 16 months in office for 400 metric tons of imported fish instead of buying the fish locally, Luna claimed.

Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) national chairman Rafael Mariano blamed this liberalized importation regime on the country’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Mariano also objected to the recent entry and planned field testing of the so-called Golden Rice Variety by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, Laguna.

"Despite the strong opposition of farmers, the IRRI is pushing for their field testing of the Golden Rice variety. The use of this variety would only result in Philippine agriculture’s dependence on profit-thirsty agro-chemical transnational corporations," Mariano said.

He said the rice variety is highly-dependent on agricultural chemicals. – With reports from Aurea Calica, Perseus Echeminada, Jose Rodel Clapano