SOLON URGES
Label fresh China meat, veggies, too
By Leila Salaverria, Christine Avendaño, Jerome Aning
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:59:00 10/07/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Even meat, poultry and vegetables sold in local markets should have labels indicating their country of origin in order to promote food safety and to curb smuggling, according to Palawan Rep. Abraham Mitra.
Amid the health scare surrounding dairy products imported from China, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago for her part, on Monday called on the Senate to investigate customs officials for the smuggling of tainted food items.
Mitra urged that food labeling laws also cover items sold in their “original state,” including requiring them to carry “nationality tags” to help consumers weigh for themselves the safety of what they buy.
He said that unlike canned and processed food which bear appropriate information, raw items such as fresh meat had no labels indicating where they came from.
“In the case of cabbages or apples, or any fruit or vegetable for that matter, is there any way we can know on-the-spot where they were grown?” he said.
He said the branding of raw products, rather than taken as a form of discrimination, should be viewed as a “seal of good quality.”
He said such labels would also allow the authorities to gauge whether local markets were being flooded with certain imports.
“It will give us a feel if we are up to our necks in imported products despite official claims that smuggling in this area had been stopped,” Mitra said.
In two “urgent” resolutions, Santiago called on the Senate blue ribbon committee to open an inquiry into the possible involvement of customs officials in the entry of tainted products, and asked the chamber’s health committee to hasten the passage of a bill seeking to establish a national safety food program.
“From what I know, container vans containing imported goods are not being inspected anymore—whether there is a person, ghost or flying saucer from an alien planet there,” she said.
“The customs personnel are being paid for not opening the container vans,” she added.
Santiago said had the country not been alerted about the China health scandal, the milk products would have been given to infants who could have ended up dead.
“So these people (customs men), they are infant killers,” she said.
Director Jarius Paguntalan of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service, however, disputed Santiago’s claim, saying the Bureau of Customs could not be blamed for the entry into the country of melamine-tainted milk from China.
“The milk scare is not only in the Philippines. Even in the US, there is a milk scare. We were the first to act on it. I immediately issued a memorandum to my men to be on the lookout for melamine,” Paguntalan told reporters.
“We just want to assure the public that we are doing everything to the best of our ability. But there are a lot of government agencies tasked to do the checking, although it’s difficult to point fingers. Customs has no capability to check on the [presence] of melamine [in a product],” he said.
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