SAN JOSE, Antique – A total of 118 stores in four Antique towns temporarily stopped selling pork-based products from outside Western Visayas.
These stores were in the municipalities of San Jose, Sibalom, Tobias Fornier, and Anini-y, said Glen Fernando, trade and industry specialist of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Antique.
The stores withdrew pork-based products from their shelves in support of the provincial government’s campaign against African swine fever (ASF).
DTI is part of the ASF Task Force chaired by Antique governor Rhodora Cadiao so it included in its regular price monitoring of basic and prime commodities since Feb. 1.
“So far there had been no more pork-based products such as Pork Knorr Cubes and canned pork and beans being sold in the stores,” said Fernando.
The store owners had also been furnished a copy of Provincial Ordinance No. 2020-242 prohibiting the carrying, transportation, shipment, distribution, storing, trading, marketing, and sale of pork products including but not limited to canned goods and food items containing pork from places outside Western Visayas.
Also banned is the shipment of live pigs, boar semen, pork outside of the region.
Meanwhile, Dr. Marco Rafael Ardamil of the Provincial Veterinary Office said with their ongoing checkpoint at the Iloilo and Aklan province borders, they have also noticed that the delivery vans are no longer transporting pork-based products to the province.
During the first week of the border checkpoints on Feb. 22, several delivery van drivers were reprimanded for violating the ordinance. (PNA/PN)
