Turkish students to share beef to Baguio residents

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines -  No to “pork”, but yes to beef. 

What is their “beef”, however?  "Sharing,"  said Turkish student Hakan Ozkan, president of the Baguio chapter of the Turkey-based Integrated Center for Alternative Developments (ICAD) Foundation.

The beef-sharing program, perhaps the first time in the city, has  been offered to the Baguio City government by Ozkan and Arif Emre Arslan after meeting with Mayor Mauricio Domogan.

Cows will be slaughtered the “halal” way by the ICAN Foundation and the Turkish people would distribute the meat to at least 500 poor families in the city.

“At least two kilos of beef will be given to each family,” Ozkan said.

The program would become a yearly activity “as a way of sharing not only to Muslims but Christians as well," the Turkish students said.

Domogan expressed gratitude to the Turkish students, saying “the program would certainly benefit indigent families and would be a vessel by which good relations between the people of Baguio and the Turkish people will be strengthened.”


The mayor said the Office of the City Social Welfare Development will be involved in creating the list of intended beneficiaries of the program

ICAD Foundation is a private, non-profit, non-stock organization established in the Philippines in 1996.
 It began its beef-sharing program in 1997 and has been going on for 15 years mainly in Zamboanga, Davao and Manila, usually during the celebration of Eid Al-Adha.

Baguio has a huge Moslem community  with  at leastt 10,000 Moslems, exluding Moslem students.

Beef sharing is part of ICAN foundation’s  goal to fulfill its social responsibility through charitable works and service to the community.

Ozkan said, “they would also be working out the possibility of a sister city relations between Istanbul, Turkey and Baguio City anytime soon.”