CEBU City Hall remains vigilant despite the lifting of the ban on the shipment of chicken and other poultry products from Luzon to other parts of the country.
According to Dr. Alice Utlang, head of the city’s Department of Veterinary Medicine and Fisheries (DVMF), no poultry products from Luzon have entered Cebu City as of yesterday, and these products could not just come in the city .
“Even though the ban has been lifted, there are certain requirements. They can’t just easily ship poultry products. There are stringent requirements like the farm should be accredited by the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), among others,” she said.
Utlang said they would be asking from the BAI of the Department of Agriculture (DA) central office in Manila for a list of all the accredited farms to allow the DVMF and other local agencies to countercheck when the shipments of chicken and poultry products start coming again to Cebu.
Although she expressed “shock” at how quickly the DA decided to lift the ban on the transport of chicken and poultry products from Luzon to Visayas and Mindanao, Utlang said they would follow the DA’s order.
She said they were still waiting for the official guidelines on the entry of these products although she admitted they already have an advanced copy of the DA administrative circular signed by Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol lifting the ban.
Today, Utlang said they will be meeting with broilers, raisers and importers of chicken and will include a discussion about the DA’s lifting of the ban.
Utlang also said she got a call from the provincial veterinarian in Bohol who expressed reservation about the lifting of the ban. She said she advised the official to wait for and go over the guidelines and then write to the DA expressing their reservations.
Fly in the Balut?
In an earlier press conference, the DA assured that poultry products outside the seven-kilometer controlled zones of Pampanga and Nueva Ecija are safe to eat and can be shipped to other parts of the country. But Piñol also admitted that they had to consider the plea of farmers to lift the ban as it has affected their livelihood.
Among the requirements is that shipments must carry certifications and seals from quarantine officers and that “balut” eggs or duck eggs with embryo must be cooked before being shipped.
This means, balut will have to be shipped by air and not by sea since the shelf life of cooked balut is only three days, Utlang explained.
“Those suppliers that get their supply from Luzon, they can’t easily do so (ship balut as air cargo). There are certain requirements. We are also coordinating with the quarantine in the region to have links of communication so that we would know if there are coming shipments and we can check it right away at the port or airport,” Utlang said.
The Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI), meanwhile, welcomed the lifting of the ban.
But CCCI president Melanie Ng said that Cebu also has its own “robust” poultry and egg industry and that businesses engaged in it should adopt measures to protect the industry from threats.
“Hence, we must exercise prudence and caution in whatever shipments that may arrive in our ports, equipping our inspection teams to remain vigilant and our citizens to continue to be careful in the procurement of poultry supply,” Ng said.