Baguio starts crackdown on pigpens

BAGUIO CITY, Benguet, Philippines — The city government has started shutting down pigpens this week after the lapse of the Jan. 30 deadline for hog raisers to voluntarily stop all backyard operations that are banned under city laws.

Lawyer Rhenan Diwas, acting city environment and parks management officer, said they had notified 241 hog raisers about the crackdown.

Diwas said these backyard raisers were advised to shift to another form of livelihood or join a cooperative that is developing a common pig farm in Tuba town, Benguet province.

The shutdown of pigpens supports a Baguio plan to reduce pollution that is discharged into the rivers. Pigpens and poor septage systems of the city market and the city abattoir have been blamed for the high levels of fecal matter in four rivers flowing to Benguet and La Union province.

High coliform content

Balili River, which flows to vegetable farms in La Trinidad town in Benguet, has coliform content of 1.6 quadrillion while Bued River along Kennon Road has fecal content of up to 5.4 trillion, according to a report to Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat and Interior Secretary Eduardo Año.

The city’s hog raisers have been asked to form a cooperative that would own and operate a modern and automated pig farm at Barangay San Pascual in Tuba, using a P12-million grant from the Department of Agriculture.