WITH the resurgent outbreaks of African Swine Fever (ASF) now spread across an alarming 460 municipalities in 54 provinces, Camarines Sur Representative LRay Villafuerte has proposed the declaration of a state of calamity in ASF-affected areas, so the government can carry out emergency measures to stave off a feared scenario of dwindling pork supply, bigger imports, and runaway retail prices in the months ahead.

Villafuerte said a state of calamity will let the national government, for one, allocate a portion of its contingency funds for the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) to quickly acquire anti-ASF vaccines for a nationwide immunization drive for the hogs of those in the piggery business, especially the backyard raisers who are still reeling from the earlier ASF outbreaks.

The former Deputy Speaker for Finance has noted that a state of calamity will enable the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to scour for contingency funds for such an emergency purchase of anti-ASF vaccines, which the BAI can administer to domestic pigs starting this year.

“Amid the proposed initial rollout of vaccines this year, the DBM and BAI can then work on a regular budget plan that can be incorporated into next year’s General Appropriations Act (GAA), so the Bureau can continue this year’s vaccination drive in 2024,” said Villafuerte, whose province of CamSur is one of the ASF-affected 54 provinces in all of the country’s regions, with the exception of Metro Manila.

“The BAI needs to take emergency steps, topped by a nationwide vax drive against ASF, to prevent the current hog virus problem from taking a turn for the worse with the feared redux of supply shortages, bigger imports, and another undue spike in pork prices like the one that happened in recent years – and that could further drive up the currently lingering elevated inflation,” he said.

“Preventing another upward spiral in pork prices in the retail market is the last thing we need at this time of continued elevated inflation, given how the runaway prices of such meat items after the ASF first resurfaced in the Philippines in 2019 had induced inflationary pressures that severely hurt Filipino consumers,” Villafuerte, who heads the National Unity Party (NUP), said.

He pointed out that the country’s economic managers have been struggling for months to contain the lingering food supply and price woes that are largely responsible for the stubbornly elevated inflation, which, in turn, has affected the country’s post-pandemic growth prospects.

International financial institutions such as the World Bank and Moody’s Analytics have slashed their respective growth projections for the Philippines this year, partly on fears that the sticky elevated inflation could impair household consumption, which is the main driver of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

In a statement released last Holy Week, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Director-General Arsenio Balisacan said that while inflation has started to slow down, “it remains the most pressing issue that the government must monitor and urgently address.”

Balisacan recalled that President Marcos Jr. approved last March 7 the creation of the Inter-Agency Committee on Inflation and Market Outlook, which is an advisory body on strategies to alleviate inflation and ensure food and energy security while balancing the interests of domestic food producers, consumers, and the broader economy.

The NEDA chief said this new Committee’s objective is “to offer proactive policy recommendations regarding emerging threats to (the) food supply, such as the potential escalation of ASF…”

The latest BAI data showed that ASF has already struck 460 municipalities in 54 provinces in 16 regions. (Only Metro Manila remains ASF-free as of this writing.)

The ASF-hit provinces are:

In Luzon – Abra, Apayao, Aurora, Bataan, Batangas, Benguet, Bulacan, Cagayan, CamSur, Cavite, Ifugao, Isabela, Kalinga, Laguna, Marinduque, Mountain Province, Nueva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Quezon, Rizal, Sorsogon, Tarlac, and Zambales; 

In the Visayas – Capiz, Cebu, Guimaras, Iloilo, Leyte, Northern Samar, Samar and Southern Leyte; and

In Mindanao – Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Camiguin, Davao de Oro, Davao del Norte, Daval del Sur, Davao Occidental, Davao Oriental, Dinagat Islands, Lanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Misamis Oriental, North Cotabato, Sarangani, Sultan Kudarat, Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga del Sur, and Zamboanga Sibugay.

Earlier, Department of Agriculture (DA) Assistant Secretary and Deputy spokesman Rex Estoperez said that ASF is now a “national concern” and that President Marcos Jr. is “up-to-date” on the outbreak’s extent.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc. (PAMPI), through its secretary Precious Chua-Yu, has reportedly feared that the continuous spread of ASF, especially in Cebu and other parts of the Visayas – that have been ASF-free for the longest time – will likely lead to higher pork imports “to arrest issues on food security and inflation.”

“With the ASF outbreak in Cebu, I believe the country doesn’t have a choice but to resort to pork imports to supply [the] demands of the Filipino consumers,” she said.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) earlier projected pork imports to rise to 600,000 metric tons (MT), which is higher than the USDA’s previous forecast of 450,000 MT and higher than the import volume of 575,000 MT in 2022.

Over the long weekend, Villafuerte called on the BAI to mull over the implementation of a nationwide immunization drive to contain this killer pig disease to stop the virus from wreaking havoc on the domestic hog population and further driving up the already elevated inflation as a result of possibly another upward price spiral in pork products.

Villafuerte said an immunization drive has “now become doable, following Vietnam’s discovery last year and subsequent use of the world’s first vaccine to beat this deadly disease, and the ongoing field trials that local agribusiness companies have already been doing here in our country to check the efficacy of this new drug in the Philippine setting.”

The former Camarines Sur governor suggested that once this new veterinary drug is proven at the end of local field trials to be as effective as an anti-ASF drug in the Philippines as it has been in Vietnam since its discovery last year, “the BAI should weigh the feasibility of implementing a nationwide anti-ASF drive to help especially the backyard raisers to save their animals – and stave off another undue spike in pork prices that could further drive up the already elevated inflation.”

“Another rocketing of pork prices is the last thing that the government, the hog industry, and Filipino consumers need now that the President’s economic team has been grappling with the stubbornly elevated inflation, which economists and analysts fear could undermine our economy’s strong rebound from the pandemic and the country’s future high-growth prospects,” he said.

The BAI itself revealed last month that all of the country’s regions, with the sole exception of Metro Manila, have been infected with ASF, from just seven regions only last February.

Estoperez was quoted by the media as confirming in a recent news briefing the earlier warning by the National Livestock Program (NLP) of a possible shortage of over 46,000 metric tons (MT) of pork in June, as against the projected demand of 145,849 MT.

At a press conference, Estoperez confirmed the earlier warning of the NLP that there would be a shortage of at least 46,100 MT in the pork supply this June, compared to the demand of over 145,000 MT.

Prior to the news briefing, NLP director Ruth Miclat-Sonaco had revealed in the DA’s consultation with various stakeholders that the country could start experiencing a domestic pork shortage as early as this April, with a possible shortfall of 11 days equivalent to some 56,000 MT.

Villafuerte said that to the government’s credit, the DA and BAI have carried out initiatives such as hog repopulation in ASF-hit areas through the Integrated National Swine Production Initiatives for Recovery and Expansion (INSPIRE) and barangay-based monitoring and disease control through the “Bantay ASF sa Barangay” (BaBay ASF), but he added that he had been informed that many industry players continue to hesitate to reinvest 100% in their businesses because of the continued outbreak threats.

“These swine industry players who suffered heavy financial losses after ASF resurfaced in 2019 apparently fear losing more money in the future in the absence of any assurance that ASF outbreaks will be a thing of the past,” he said. “And it seems that the only way to boost their confidence in reinvesting 100% in the industry is if the government can shield their pig stocks from future ASF outbreaks by way of an immunization program.”

ASF is a viral disease infecting pigs with a fatality rate of up to 100%, and that has decimated swine industries worldwide since its resurgence, first in China, in 2018.

This disease is responsible for a 50%-drop in our local swine population after ASF resurfaced in the Philippines in 2019 and spread across over 50 provinces by 2022, devastating commercial pig farms and backyard raisers and causing an annual revenue loss of P100 billion for allied industries.

There was a nearly 25%-decline in pork output in the period from June to October 2021 as against the same four months in 2020, driving retail prices up to P400 a kilo from the earlier per-kilo average of P250.

A check with the DA website as of Monday showed that prices were at P330 to P420 a kilo of fresh pork and P260 to P320 for frozen pork, in the latest monitoring report of its Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Service (AMAS)-Bantay Presyo.

Villafuerte said BAI could consider following the lead of the Hanoi government, which was set to distribute nationwide the world’s first commercially available anti-ASF vaccine that was developed by AVAC Vietnam Joint Stock Co.

He claimed that reports reaching his office bared that this same vaccine being used in Vietnam is now undergoing trials in four Philippine farms under BAI supervision.

Villafuerte said the President’s economic managers seem worried enough about the still-elevated inflation that they sought presidential approval in March for the creation of an Inter-Agency Committee on Inflation and Market Outlook to come up with ways to keep inflation within a manageable level.

To have an idea as to how increased pork prices had jacked up inflation, he said that after accounting for only 5% of overall inflation over the 1995-2020 period, meat accounted for 20% of overall inflation in the three months to March 2021 after the ASF-induced rise in meat prices in that quarter.

Citing Department of Finance (DOF) data, he said that from its 3.5% contribution to inflation in 2019, the higher cost of meat contributed 4.3% to inflation in 2020 and a faster 19.6% over the January-March quarter in 2021.

He said the higher meat prices made up the “No. 1 contributor” to overall inflation that year at 1.3 percentage points (pps), which was bigger than the one percentage-point contribution of rice to inflation during the rice crisis of 2018.

AUTHOR PROFILE

Ryan Ponce Pacpaco