President Marcos to meet with hog, poultry raisers

MANILA, Philippines — President Marcos will meet with hog and poultry raisers’ groups today as flooding of imported and smuggled pork and chicken products has been plaguing the local industry.

In an interview with The STAR over the weekend, United Broiler Raisers Association (UBRA) and Philippine Egg Board (PEB) chairman Gregorio San Diego said the consultation at Malacañang at 2 p.m. would be a venue for poultry and hog raisers to relay to the President the problems affecting the local industry.

“We will see what the outcome of our meeting with President Marcos will be,” San Diego said.

He added that the stakeholders meeting was arranged by the National Agricultural and Fishery Council (NAFC) after a consultation with officials of the Department of Agriculture (DA) led by Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban two months ago.

“We hope (the meeting) will become productive for the sake of the local industry as he said he wants to be the secretary of the DA to help the agriculture sector,” San Diego said, referring to Marcos.

Hog and poultry raisers will air their concerns as the local industry continues to suffer amid the unabated smuggling and flooding of imported meat products, according to UBRA and PEB chief.

“We will really speak up, and this is on record. Our members will no longer accuse us of failure to voice our concerns as it will be the President who will hear our issues,” he said.

He added that if not addressed, the unabated flooding of imported and smuggled meat products will kill the local industry.

“The importers and smugglers continue to control the agriculture commodities. It started in 2016 where the retail prices of garlic reached P300 (per kilo),”San Diego said, adding

that local production is less than a percent of domestic requirement.

He noted that the scheme is being done with other farm products like onion, chicken and pork.

“Importers are getting rich as they are involved in technical smuggling where there is misdeclaration of imported products like chicken and pork,” San Diego said.

During the stakeholders meeting with Panganiban, DA officials reported that the inventory of broilers is good for 110 days, according to the San Diego.

“This does not include the data of imports. I told Senior Undersecretary Panganiban at that time that the importation should be stopped as we have oversupply of local broiler production. The importation should only be meant to augment the local supply but what is happening now is it replaces the local supply as the local production dwindles because of over importation,” San Diego said.

At the same time, he predicted that the local poultry industry would die because of unabated importation.

“It will kill the local industry as our children are hesitant to continue our business because they see our sufferings. Just like in the retail prices of onions, once the smugglers, importers control the supply, they will control the prices,” San Diego said, referring to the situation in December last year, where the bulbs reached as high as P720 per kilo amid shortage and hoarding in the supply.

He also expressed doubt whether Marcos’ order to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to go after smugglers, hoarders and cartel of agricultural products will succeed.

“First, he did not give a timeline. It’s difficult if it’s open-ended. He did not specify if there is a deadline,” San Diego said.

He added that Marcos’ promises, especially during his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) will be useless if there will be no concrete action.

“Words are not important to us. What is important is actions. During his first SONA, he promised to subsidize the feeds amid the high cost. No actions were made to bring down the prices. Until now, local products are suffering because of high feed cost,” San Diego said.

He added that Marcos only visited the DA thrice in a year as secretary of the department.

“He was so busy and he also frequently travels abroad. Since his assumption (as DA secretary), it was only his third time to visit the DA during its recent anniversary. We were hoping since he is the President, he can easily remove corrupt officials. They are still there. No less than his sister, Sen. Imee Marcos, said that he should sack officials, but nothing happened. The farmers are suffering,” San Diego said.

He also criticized the National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS) for its failure to release the list of cold storage facilities operating illegally.