NL livestock raisers press Senate probe on P5-B loss

By Freddie G. Lazaro

VIGAN CITY, Ilocos Sur — A group of livestock raisers in northern Luzon urged the Senate to conduct a thorough probe on entry of meat in the country, citing disparity in importation data between monitoring agencies that point to nearly P5 billion in government losses.

The Swine Development Council and Abono Party- list group reported the disparities in the official data between the United Nations and Department of Agriculture on meat importation last year, which showed that more than P16 billion worth pork meat had been smuggled.

           

Abono party-list chairman and Swine Development Council Convenor Rosendo So said a comparison of United Nations Statistics Division-Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN COMTRADE) records and data from the DA’s Bureau of Animal Industry did not match last year.

           

Wherein, the general observation was that Philippine records (from the BAI) for the volume of importation of hog’s meat were very much lower than those declared by foreign trade partners.

           

In a position paper submitted to the Senate committee on Agriculture and Food, So cited the records from the UN Comtrade and the DA’s Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) that out from the 164,122,423 kilograms of pork meat exported by other countries into the Philippines in 2011, only 54,174,139 kilograms were officially recorded entering the country.