JUST ANOTHER DAY

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BY LUIS BUENAFLOR JR.
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Not fit for human consumption

IT LOOKS like something big or someone big is going to come crashing down this week. There are already a lot of talks that two senators will be implicated or identified by Kerwin Espinosa, the “drug lord” recently captured by the police and son of slain Mayor Rolando Espinosa who was also implicated in the illegal drugs trade.

Whatever Kerwin Espinosa spills is going to come down hard and if you’re a “big man” and in a high position, the fall would be hard and painful.

But we’re not going talk about it now. We’ll let the story develop first then analyze it. We are going to talk about something that’s literally affecting the stomachs of the natives of “I am Iloilo.” We’ll still be talking about something fat and big like pigs and cows.

Four years ago with much fanfare and publicity, Sen. Franklin M. Drilon and then Secretary of Agriculture Proceso Alcala inaugurated what was supposed to be an upgraded P83-million “double-A” abattoir or slaughterhouse in Iloilo that will pave the way to transforming the province and Western Visayas into a major livestock producer and source of quality meat and meat products.

The upgrading of the Iloilo City slaughterhouse was initiated by Senator Drilon who shared P40 million from his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) while the Department of Agriculture (DA) provided P31.5 under the Agricultural Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (ACEF), and the Iloilo City government pitched in P11.5 million as its equity.

During that inauguration, then DA secretary Alcala also said that the National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS) was set to give an additional P20 million to further upgrade the facility from “Double A” to “Triple A.” That is provided it passes the inspection of the NMIS.

The city government boasted that the abattoir located at a 1.1-hectare complex in Barangay Tacas, Jaro, Iloilo City was equipped with a set of modern mechanized slaughtering and cutting equipment, 50-ton cold storage facility, wastewater filtration system, holding pen, and meat delivery van.

Wow! Sounds too good to be true. Imagine “I am Iloilo” has a “Triple A” slaughterhouse making it “world-class” indeed.

Four years down the road we learned that the much ballyhooed P83-million “world-class slaughterhouse of “I am Iloilo” is still not accredited by the NMIS.

It seemed that a Feb. 16, 2015 evaluation report of NMIS found out that only its structure qualified for Double A, while its equipment and operational activities cannot even qualify for a “minus A” accreditation.

The NMIS inspection team found a lot of lapses in the maintenance of equipments and on sanitation and cleanliness. All those supposedly “world-class” equipments are already either defective or completely beyond repair. There were also lapses in operation particularly on humane slaughter and there was no stable supply of potable water. This slaughterhouse facility which cost the taxpayers P83 million cannot even ensure the natives of “I am Iloilo” clean and safe meat.

Reminds one of another “world-class” facility, the “Iloilo Convention Center”, one of the numerous projects of the “big man” Sen. Franklin Drilon.

Just recently the city government of “I am Iloilo” purchased two boilers worth P3.75 million, a state-of the-art boiler is one of the machines needed to qualify for the AA classification, according to Local Economic Enterprise Office chief Ariel Castaneda.

Even with that, the slaughterhouse still has a long way to go to get just a “Double A” accreditation. Their rule is “all or nothing”, meaning you have to meet all standards simultaneously not one by one; until then no accreditation from NMIS.

Ever wonder why there is no “5 Star” hotel in “I am Iloilo”? Quite simple really. One of the requirements for such is that the slaughterhouse must have at the very least a “Double A” accreditation from the NMIS.

Until such time that the slaughterhouse of “I am Iloilo” gets the most minimum of accreditation from the NMIS, all the meat processed there are technically and officially “unfit for human consumption.”/PN
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