Pigsty

Truth is we need to decimate all our existing pig stock to ensure the survival of the next batch. This is a very expensive lesson to the entire country.

I am officially a victim of the African swine flu. No, I do not have it. But 20 or so of my pigs have died almost certainly because of it. My pig farm is in a very isolated part of Tanay and should not have been affected. Problem is that my overseer also has his own backyard pig farm in Payatas, epicenter of the outbreak in Quezon City. His pigs in Payatas have been decimated; I fear that my lot of 200 piglets, now down to 180, will suffer the same fate. I have contacted the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) to test the cause of death. If it is the dreaded swine flu, I was advised that it would be useless to continue with my venture since the whole lot will die anyway. If this is the case, that’s 200 lechons lesser for Christmas.

This was my latest venture after I left government. In fact, I have long wanted to venture into this business since 2016 when I instead opted to run for Congress. It was Gov. Pepito Alvarez, himself a hobbyist for livestock raising, who advised me that a piggery would be a full-time job. Immediately after I withdrew from the Senate race due to illness, I immediately resolved to resurrect this long planned venture into hog raising.

I intended to produce my own pork for native organic lechon Cebu under the brand “Miniongs.” I also intended to produce bagnet and bacon. My only hope is that because I am raising only native pigs and fed with organic feeds, that majority of my pigs will survive, If not, it will be a total loss amounting to more than a million pesos. I’m sure I will survive this debacle. I wish I could say the same thing for those relying solely on hog-raising for their livelihood. Sure, another of my goals, like my Senate run, might go awry. But I can recover precisely because hog-raising was but a hobby, albeit a bit expensive to the cost of an Innova. It would seem that government would have to devote more resources to help our marginal hog raisers rise anew from this tragedy.

In any case. I hope we have learned our lesson from this episode. I suspect the virus got to my remote farm precisely because my overseer did not heed the advice of the BAI not to venture into other pig farms while the threat of the virus persists. I think he did. He blames it on the delivery truck of our organic food supplier. But a veterinarian from the BAI said that this is remote. What appears more plausible is that the overseer brought the virus from his Payatas piggery to Tanay. Tigas kasi ng ulo!

On a wider scale, the swine fever entered the country also because of carelessness of our countrymen. I think government did not lack in warning one and all to desist from bringing into the country pork products from countries already afflicted with the virus. This obviously fell on deaf ears. Unfortunately, I was advised by the same veterinarian from the BAI that in the absence of a cure, we can only wait it out until our entre pig stock is decimated. While government is quick to deny that we have had the most pigs deaths in the country worldwide, the truth is we need to decimate all our existing pig stock to ensure the survival of the next batch. This is a very expensive lesson to the entire country. Let’s take the threat of animal pandemic more seriously.

More importantly, let us learn from the nature of a pandemic. This time, it struck our piggeries. Tomorrow, it may yet be a virus dangerous to mankind, At this time of air travel, we certainty need to be more stringent in our responses to pandemics afflicting both our livestock and our people.

Hopefully, this crisis would have taught us a lesson. If not, it could be human beings that could next succumb to the next pandemic.