Imee questions ‘suspicious’ DA storage facility
The lawmaker also pointed out that food imports will become more expensive for Metro Manila’s 12 million residents because of the additional cost of delivery from Subic
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The lawmaker also pointed out that food imports will become more expensive for Metro Manila’s 12 million residents because of the additional cost of delivery from Subic
Senator Imee Marcos on Monday questioned the proposed site of a P500 million-worth laboratory-equipped cold examination facility for agricultural imports — the first of its kind in the country.
The lady senator — the eldest sister of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who concurrently chairs the Department of Agriculture — called on the agency to justify its choice of location in Subic for the proposed infrastructure project.
"What's cooking in Subic, that imported meat and crops must be diverted away from Manila?" asked Marcos as she expressed concern over the potential risk of another African Swine Fever outbreak if the facility's first-border inspections are not based instead in Manila, where most meat imports are shipped.
"We're already importing all kinds of food. Must diseases be imported too?" she added.
The lawmaker also pointed out that food imports will become more expensive for Metro Manila's 12 million residents because of the additional cost of delivery from Subic.
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On the 18 July briefer, the Agriculture department recommended the facility's location, funding, and construction by June 2023 to the president.
Insiders from the Bureau of Animal Industry said the project — first proposed in 2019 but whose funding lapsed in 2020 — could have been built last year in Manila's South Harbor, according to the lawmaker.
The senator said the site is a vacant 5,000-square-meter lot known as Block 162 was being managed by Asian Terminals Inc. under a concession granted by the Philippine Ports Authority.
However, she added that former DA Secretary William Dar and BAI director Reildrin Morales had pushed for the construction of the laboratory-equipped facility in either Subic or Cebu.
"It's been nine years since the Food Safety Act became law, but first-border inspections have not been properly enforced," the senator said. "The facility's location is key to achieving food safety and security."
Marcos warned that a major outbreak could again be triggered by contaminated pork imports and cause business closures and job losses in the swine industry, a shortage of pork products, and a further increase in already high market prices of pork.
ASF cases have subsided since nationwide outbreaks began in 2019.
Pork imports amounting to 545,213,681 kilos made up about 54 percent of total meat imports from January to September this year, according to the BAI.
Spain, Canada, and Brazil have supplied 61 percent of the Philippines' pork requirements, with Belgium, the United States, Denmark, the United Kingdom, France and The Netherlands supplying the rest.
