Farmers’ rep hit call to boycott local pork

MANILA, Philippines — The hog-raising industry would only be hurt by the call made by meat processors to boycott local pork on fears of African swine fever (ASF) contamination,  a party list lawmaker said, cautioning industry players to stop “manifesting their greed” and “causing panic.”

Magsasaka Rep. Argel Cabatbat on Wednesday took exception to the boycott call of Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc. (Pampi), saying their move to shun locally sourced pork was misguided.

“Calling for a local boycott does not contribute to solving the problem at hand, and it continuously hurts the hog-raising industry, a huge chunk of which are small players who are doing honest work to survive day-by-day,” Cabatbat said in a statement.

“The call to punish the local industry is a form of scapegoating, especially [since] the call comes from an organization that sources most of its meat abroad,” the lawmaker said of Pampi, the country’s largest group of meat processors.

While Cabatbat acknowledged the need to contain the spread of ASF, he said Pampi “needs to be reminded that the likelihood of the [virus] originating from imported pork is greater than it coming from local ones.”

“The way to respond to this problem is for industry players to come together, instead of one or few players manifesting greed and intentionally causing panic just to get ahead of the competition,” he said.