Aggie, Customs officials wrangle over rotting meat

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — Two huge vans loaded with illegally imported meat now reportedly rotting at the Subic Bay Freeport, have become a contentious issue between the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Bureau of Customs (BoC).

The DA’s quarantine officials lamented yesterday the BoC’s failure to immediately dispose of the illegally imported pork skin and frozen chicken leg quarters which arrived in two container vans at the Subic Bay Freeport sometime last year.

Each van contained about 55,000 kilos of the meat products.

The other night, quarantine officials blocked an attempt by the BoC in Subic to turn over the shipment to the Zafra company based in Angat, Bulacan.

This, after they found out that the imported meat was not defrozen for 15 days as required before it is eventually condemned, Dr. Romeo Manalili, Central Luzon chief of the DA’s quarantine service, told The STAR.

Lawyer Reynaldo Avelino, BoC deputy chief for operations at Subic, admitted that the meat products have started to emit foul smell at the Subic warehouse due to a defect in the freezer.

Manalili said the meat shipment had no veterinary quarantine certificate (VQC) which serves as an import permit, thus DA officials held it.

"Since the frozen products were not backed by the required legal documents, they were ordered condemned. The policy in such cases is for the container vans containing the products to be unplugged from their power source for 15 days to allow some decomposition to make sure that they would no longer reach the market and instead be burned or (made) into useful fertilizer," Manalili said.

Customs officials, however, plugged the container vans to power outlets in an effort to preserve the meat products.

About six months ago, Manalili said his office advised the Subic BoC not to release the shipment for condemnation and conversion into fertilizer until the container vans had been unplugged for 15 days.

"Somebody even later got a VQC for the shipment but this, too, is illegal since the VQC is supposed to be obtained before the arrival of the shipment, not after," he said.

"I don’t know why the Customs people kept the illegal products frozen contrary to our advice," he added.

The chicken leg quarters were apparently shipped from the United States and the pork skin from Korea.

Benjie Angeles, chief of the DA’s anti-smuggling task force, said the BoC had planned to turn over the meat products to the Zafra company but quarantine officials blocked this.

Avelino said he did not immediately dispose of the meat products because permission from higher authorities was needed for this.

He said he was not aware of the 15-day requirement for the unplugging of the container vans containing the products before they are turned over for burning. He said he was told about it only the other night.

"Besides, the Zafra firm now seems reluctant to get the shipment since one of the vans is now reported to be emitting foul odor because of some defects in freezing," he said.

Avenilo said Zafra also expressed concern that it would encounter problems with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources if the meat products turn out to be already decomposing.

Manalili said he would propose that the meat products just be condemned and buried in a disposal site in Subic instead of being turned over to a private firm for burning and conversion into fertilizers.

But Avelino said his superiors agreed that the meat products be burned so that some benefit could still be derived from them as fertilizers.

Quarantine and Customs officials are slated to meet in Subic tomorrow to settle their dispute over the meat shipment.