“Sacrificing the economic interests of a few for the general economic welfare of the many is brutal. It cannot be avoided.

It is not so much about threats to our bodily health. The Asian swine fever (ASF) virus is usually only fatal to pigs but not harmful to humans, after all.

Rather it is also about the brutal barbarism between a minority’s economic self-interests and the general economic welfare of all which makes the ASF scare compelling.

Nothing demonstrates this brutality than what is now going on in Barangay Payatas, Quezon City. Densely populated by informal settlers and famously known for its former dumpsite, small backyard hog raisers there are resisting authorities containing the spread of ASF by killing infected pigs.

“We still have half of Barangay Payatas to deal with. They have not been so cooperative during our first culling,” says Quezon City veterinarian Dr. Ana Marie Cabel on what is happening.

While six other barangays in Quezon City have been cleared of ASF, Barangay Payatas hog raisers are resisting because of fears of financial losses. This in spite of the city government offering help of P3,000 per culled pig. But hog raisers previously sold full-grown pigs for P8,000 to P9,000, a clear loss of P5,000 if the pigs were surrendered.

In the end, however, the backyard hog raisers of Barangay Payatas have no choice but raise the white flag.

They cannot but lose their shirts in face of the government’s relenting efforts to halt the spread of the disease in order to safeguard the country’s P260 billion pork industry.

“Their pigs are dying, so they are forced to surrender,” says Cabel on the brutal eventuality. Authorities will return to Barangay Payatas next week for another round of culling pigs.

Sacrificing the economic interests of a few for the general economic welfare of the many is brutal. It cannot be avoided.

Backyard hog raisers of Barangay Payatas aren’t the only ones who are suffering. The government has already culled thousands of pigs in several places in Central Luzon and has enforced a ban on the importation of pork meat products from countries affected by ASF.

Some provinces in the Visayas and Mindanao are also blockading pork products coming from Luzon, aiming to protect their own piggeries from infection. This, in spite of appeals from the Agriculture department not to do so. Meanwhile, armed police have set up roadblocks to prevent pig movements between Central Luzon provinces.

But the threat does not end with the backyard raisers of pigs. Aside from hog raisers reluctant about culling, there is the threat from a few unscrupulous traders.

Acknowledging the inexcusable behavior of some, Agriculture Secretary William Dar is appealing “to small backyard hog raisers not to sell their ASF-infected pigs to traders, and for traders not to sell infected hogs and pork and processed products so as not to spread the ASF virus to other areas.”

Frustrating though these problems are, these are still manageable compared to what ASF can do if nothing is done and that it can cause major economic losses for our swine industry.

The country’s hog industry is estimated to be already losing nearly P1 billion pesos a month from ASF ever since the first outbreak early in September at three backyard farms in Rizal province.

According to some veterinarians, the original cause of the Rizal outbreak seems to be the feeding of contaminated waste food by-products to backyard pigs.

From that initial outbreak, one of the affected Rizal farmers transported some diseased pigs to neighboring Bulacan. This led to restrictions on pig movements across central Luzon after ASF was detected in nearby Pampanga and Pangasinan.

In addition, some backyard growers irresponsibly dumped dead pigs into local waste sites and rivers. Some 39 dead pigs were recovered from the Marikina River and some local rivers in Quezon City.

Some 40 percent of the country’s total current pig population of 13 million heads come from numerous backyard farms. Commercial pig farms account for the rest. Only three regions — Central Luzon, Northern Mindanao and Western Visayas — host most of the commercial pig farms.

More than 60,000 pigs have since either died because of the disease or have been culled. While the number is less than one percent of the country’s total pig population, nobody can rest easy.

With the disease quickly spreading, the central bank is already warning the pork crisis risks fueling inflation.

The saving grace of importing pork also cannot be relied on. The country is the world’s 10th largest pork importer, but global prices of pork is at an all-time high ever since China was hit hard by ASF.

Lack of funds for tiding over the affected pig farmers is also another headache. The Department of Agriculture (DA) allots only P82 million to manage ASF, and most of the fund are used to compensate affected farmers.

Currently, the DA gives P3,500 to hog raisers, regardless of the market value of the culled pig. The aid is near the current market price of 30-kilogram pigs that are mainly used for lechon. But the aid is well below the current market price for porker pigs or pigs grown for markets and meat processors, which is around P9,000. There are proposals to raise the compensation to around P14,000.

At any rate, should all the amount earmarked for ASF be used, the cash is only good for around 23,400 culled pigs. The DA has so far culled 20,000 pigs.

But even amid all these frantic efforts to contain diseased pigs, Agriculture officials now admit the ASF virus has been detected in some processed homemade pork products, like hotdogs, sausages and cured meat.

As such, economic experts are predicting the ASF scare eventually leads to people eating less pork, putting at risk scores of meat-processing companies.

If you aren’t already feeling feverish with all these, eschewing pork and pork products isn’t of help — you’ll still end paying higher prices for other non-pork food like beef, chicken and fish. Brace yourself.