ASF ordinance in place by March

By Dolly Yasa

BACOLOD City – Councilor Wilson Gamboa Jr. said that the task force created to address the African Swine Fever (ASF) and other emerging livestock infectious diseases will most likely be in place by March 2020.

The City Council recently passed on third and final reading an ordinance creating the Bacolod City Task Force on African Swine Fever (ASF) and other emerging and re-emerging livestock infectious diseases.

The task force will check the entry or the bringing into Bacolod City, or the trading of any live pig, boar semen, pork, and meat products.

Gamboa, the main author of the ordinance, told Daily Guardian here that the task force will also “check food items containing pork originating from or manufactured and processed in Luzon and other areas affected by ASF and other livestock infectious diseases as maybe declared by the city mayor upon recommendation of the city veterinary office.”

The Task Force will be headed by the city mayor as chairperson and will be composed of the City Veterinarian as vice chair, and members of the Committee on Markets and Slaughterhouse, and Committee on  Agriculture and Agrarian Concerns, and representatives from the City  Legal Office, the  Local Bureau of Animal Industry/Animal  Quarantine Service, Task Force Botagoy, City Agricultural Office, the Local Hog or Livestock  Raisers Association of Bacolod, etc.

The ordinance imposes a penalty of P3,000 and imprisonment of not less than six months, but not exceeding one year, for the first offense; and P5,000 for second and subsequent offenses and/or  imprisonment of not less than six months but not exceeding one year and revocation of  business permit.

Gamboa also said that the ordinance is in consonance with the ASF ordinance crafted by the provincial government after Negros Occidental governor Eugenio Jose Lacson asked the different LGUs to come up with their respective ASF ordinance.