A measure authorizing the President to directly procure pork in times of emergency and sell to the market was filed in the House of Representatives.

Marikina City Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo filed House Bill 9256 or the Affordable Pork Act of 2021 to help local hog producers to recover in case there will be another catastrophe like the African Swine Flu.

“We need to provide sufficient assistance for our local industry’s recovery from ASF and its continued development in the long term to achieve true food security,” Quimbo said.

Under the bill, the president will be given the authority to directly procure pork in times of emergency and these will be sold on the market at a lower cost for the benefit of the consumers.

Only the government will have the ability to buy high from local producers and sell low to consumers, the measure clearly states.

Quimbo added that with government acting as the middle man, it can ensure that pork is bought from local hog raisers at a reasonable price.

The bill must ensure that retail price must compete with the imported products.

“In effect, government provides a price support to local producers during the crisis, while also ensuring consumers can buy pork at the lowest possible prices,” she added.

In order to sustain this support mechanism in the long term, the bill proposes the creation of Swine Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (SCEF) to be used by the government in buying pork products.

The SCEF must be sourced from all tariff revenue collected from pork imports.

Earlier, President Rodrigo Duterte has issued Executive Order 128 which temporarily lowers the rates of import duty from 30 percent to 5 t 10 percent (for in-quota) and from 40 percent to 15 to 20 percent (for out-quota pork imports).

At the start of 2021, prices of pork products in the market soar to P400 per kilo due to shortage of supply.

Meanwhile, Quimbo’s bill also proposes higher penalties against smugglers of pork meat, such as life imprisonment.