Farmers, traders hit BOC pork scam

MANILA, Philippines–The pork scam appears to have reached the Bureau of Customs.

Some 5.6 million kilos of pork of questionable quality may have entered the country without going through food safety inspections, according to Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (Sinag).

The umbrella group of agribusiness operators, farmers and party-list groups cited data from the Bureau of Customs (BOC) showing that the agency released 121.6 million kilos of imported pork during the first semester.

But the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) recorded 116 million kilos passing through quarantine inspection, leaving 5.6 million kilos unaccounted for, Sinag said.

The figure cited by Sinag represented 4.6 percent of the total volume of pork imported from January to June, according to Customs Commissioner John Philip Sevilla.

Vicente Mercado, chair of the National Federation of Hog Farmers Inc., said Sinag’s discovery came amid claims by certain importers that it was all right to eat expired meat as long as it had been frozen.

“No country allows the resale of frozen meat as chilled and no country should ever allow thawed frozen meat to be passed off and sold as fresh meat,” Mercado said.

Threat to public health

Sinag chair Rosendo So said eating expired meat posed a grave threat to public health.

“Besides, the volume that we discovered represents only those that were documented,” So said. “How much more undocumented meat is circulating in our markets?”

He said some importers bought meat stocks that were near the expiration date not only because these were cheaper but also because the practice would circumvent regulators’ inspections.

China meat scandal

So said this kind of mindset was alarming, especially in view of the recent expired meat scandal in China where a local company was found to have been supplying meat to popular fast-food chains like McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut and even Starbucks.

“We’re calling on (Agriculture) Secretary Proceso Alcala and Customs Commissioner John Philip Sevilla to immediately investigate this matter,” the Sinag chair said.

“Why is Customs releasing imported meat without quarantine clearance? Why is there no quarantine officer to check on the imported meat?” he said.

Alcala initiating probe

Alcala said he had been informed of the matter and was initiating an investigation.

“We will have that checked,” he said. “I have been vocal about the importance of food safety and this is something that we cannot tolerate.”

Sevilla, for his part, said he would hold bureau personnel accountable if there were discrepancies in the importation of pork.

“We will invite Sinag to a discussion on their findings. We would like further details and hope that they can provide specifics, such as which import entries they are referring to, so that we can check for discrepancies and isolate dubious entries.

“We will also touch base with the Bureau of Animal Industry so that we can validate the data,” the customs chief said in a statement.

“If we find discrepancies in some importations of pork meat, we will hold our people accountable. To date, 65 of our own personnel at the Bureau of Customs are being held accountable for allowing the illegal entry of rice,” he said.

Sevilla thanked Sinag for bringing the matter to the bureau’s attention and encouraged other stakeholders and industry associations to do the same.

All importations into the Philippines, segregated by month since January, are published on the BOC website, www.customs.gov.ph, he said.

The pork scam that is more familiar to the public involved the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), a pork barrel that was a source of kickbacks for lawmakers until the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional last year.

Three senators—Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla—are detained on plunder and graft charges in connection with the P10-billion PDAF scam.–With a report from Tina G. Santos