Quezon City drafting policy to prevent ASF-tainted meat in supermarkets

MANILA, Philippines — The Quezon City government said it would issue a new policy to strengthen measures and protocols aimed at preventing the sale of meat infected by African swine fever (ASF) in supermarkets.

Mayor Joy Belmonte said the issuance of an executive order (EO) was among those agreed upon during her meeting representatives of supermarkets and some meat suppliers in the city yesterday.

She called for the meeting after it was confirmed that ASF-infected meat were being sold in two supermarkets in the city.

“We have agreed that I will release an EO on how to address this issue and prevent this from recurring again… The discussions have been very productive,” she said in a press conference after the meeting.

Belmonte said the EO, which will be released later this month, would put in place a set of required protocols that every supermarket must implement to ensure that ASF-tainted meat will not be sold to consumers.

These would include ways to identify tainted meat and the proper procedures to handle suspected cases.

She said the supermarkets would submit their recommendations, such as their respective internal control systems, which would be taken into account in the crafting of the EO.

Belmonte said no sanction would be imposed on the supermarkets found to have been selling ASF-tainted meat, saying they have been cooperative in ensuring that proper procedures are followed after the test confirmed the infection.

The mayor earlier noted that the infected meat had proper documentation, including certification from the National Meat Inspection Service. It was unclear how the ASF-tainted meat got the NMIS certification.