An advocacy group is set to release a cage-free tracker in October to hold multinational corporations accountable for breached commitments to transitioning to cage-free eggs.
Citing findings by a nonprofit think tank, Nancy Samonte, program manager of the Philippines Initiative for Accountability (PIA), said 83 percent of Filipino consumers want food companies to source their eggs from cage-free environments, while 95 percent agree that hens should not be kept in cages.
“Filipino consumers are being left behind in a time when they deserve transparency. It’s not enough to make promises abroad and hide behind silence locally,” Samonte said.
“We call on local authorities to take action to protect our Filipino consumers,” she added.
Cage-free systems are recognized around the world as a more humane standard of animal welfare. Unlike battery cages, they allow hens to move more freely and express natural behaviors like perching, nesting, and dust bathing, while significantly reducing the amount of time they spend in pain.
Local egg producers have been producing and supplying cage-free eggs, PIA said.
Further, eggs from battery cage systems have been repeatedly linked to contamination. Global studies show that caged egg farms carry up to 33 times higher risk of salmonella infection compared to cage-free systems.
The issue is especially pressing in the Philippines, where public health experts are raising alarms over multidrug-resistant salmonella.
A recent study by the University of the Philippines Diliman–Institute of Biology identified these drug-resistant pathogens in chicken sold in local markets, highlighting the growing risk of food-borne illnesses that are increasingly difficult to treat.
Philippine-headquartered companies have committed to cage-free sourcing. For instance, Jollibee pledged to transition to 100 percent cage-free eggs in the United States by 2025 and 100 percent cage-free eggs globally by 2035—sparing millions of hens from cruel cages.
However, while local producers have begun stepping up, multinational companies operating in the Philippines have yet to show the same level of urgency and transparency.
Despite high-profile global pledges, many remain vague or silent about their progress within the Philippine market.
“Our consumers already buy into global brands that market themselves as ethical and sustainable. If those same brands are charging premium prices locally while cutting corners on animal welfare they follow elsewhere, then we are being lied to,” Samonte also said.
The collective is set to engage government agencies to align cage-free efforts with ESG and food sustainability frameworks.
It is also in active dialogue with major brands, pushing them to publish local transition plans that match their global standards.
Others have pledged to go cage-free by 2025. But with the deadline looming, there remains no clear update on how far they’ve come as of this writing.
“The goal is simple: empower consumers and pressure companies to stop treating ethical sourcing as optional in the Philippine market. We want Filipinos to see which companies are true to their word, and which ones are not,” Samonte added.