Pork broth cubes from Luzon covered in ASF ban

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Even pork broth cubes  from Luzon and Eastern Visayas cannot enter Cebu.

This was the reminder of Provincial Veterinarian and African Swine Fever (ASF) Task Force chief Dr. Mary Rose Vincoy following the confiscation of pork broth cubes last Friday, January 24, 2020.

Vincoy said the ASF Task Force discovered the pork broth cubes in a supermarket inside a mall in Consolacion town, northern Cebu.

“The executive order (on the ban of pork and pork related products), mentioned of pork, pork products and by-products. If you go back to the EOs, by-products are included in the ban and that includes the prok cubes,” Vincoy added.

Vincoy said the pork broth cubes came from certain areas in Luzon.

In September 2019, Governor Gwendolyn Garcia issued an executive order that totally bans all forms of pork and pork related products in the light of the ASF situation in some provinces there. 

Read: Cebu province imposes total ban vs hogs, pork products from Luzon

The ban was supoosed to end in December 2019 but Garcia extended it to June 30, 2020.

Garcia, this January 2020, expanded the ban of pork to include those coming from Eastern Visayas because the provinces of Leyte, Southern Leyte, Samar, Eastern Samar, and Northern Samar have lifted their ban on the entry of Luzon-sourced pork products.

Meanwhile, Vincoy said there will be no let up in their monitoring against the entry of ASF in the province.

Last January 22, 2020 the Regional Veterinary Quarantine Services Office (RVQSO) in Pier 4 in Cebu City also shipped back its port of origin some P10,000 worth of pork siomai and siopao.

The products were from Palo, Leyte. /bmjo