During the “boodle fight” led by President Rody Duterte in San Fernando, Pampanga yesterday to show that chicken and eggs are safe to eat, Special Assistant to the President Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go showed me a text from a Lanao leader protesting against the initiative of the Agriculture Department to send chicken to the evacuees and soldiers in Marawi City through the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
After he was shown the message, President Duterte said “kung ayaw nila, ibigay sa mga sundalo,” referring to the chicken which the Agriculture Department is facilitating to be sold to DSWD to help in diffusing the problem of chicken oversupply in the market and to help beleaguered poultry raisers.
The instruction was fine with me but early today, I read an article posted on Facebook quoting an unnamed Moro official who issued furious statements against the plan to give chicken to the evacuees and the soldiers.
“On social media, the proposal was also received with disdain. “Has the world gone mad? Is this the best thing they can think of? Chicken from bird flu area to be given to Marawi evacuees?” a retired Moro government official asked,” the article said.
“Even if certified safe by the Department of Health, what do they think of us, third class citizens? They’ve always treated us like trash so they send their trash to us. Enough is enough,” a retired Moro government official said,” it added.
Reading this, I believe I have to clarify this story lest it develops into another irritant between me and my Bangsamoro friends.
I take the blame for talking about the plan without informing the Lanao leaders about what it was all about.
But just to be very clear about this, here are some things that must be stressed:
1. I fully understand, born and raised in Cotabato, that any food item sent to the Maranao evacuees in Marawi must be Halal. In fact, the over 300,000 canned chicken and rice rations the Agriculture Dept. and Ana’s Breeder Farm in Davao City have donated to the evacuees and soldiers are certified Halal.
2. The chicken which will be brought to Marawi do not even come from the farms in Luzon. These are actually Halal-compliant products from Mindanao which will be used as replacement for the supply coming from Luzon which will be shipped to the Davao cold storage of Ana’s Breeder Farm.
3. The chicken coming from Luzon which will replace the stocks from Davao City are not newly-slaughtered chicken. These are supplies kept in the cold storage which were supposed to be released to the market on a weekly basis. With the Bird Flu scare, sales of chicken plummeted resulting in overflowing cold storage facilities, thus preventing poultry farms from undertaking their scheduled slaughtering of broiler chicken which have come of age.
4. To give room to the newly slaughtered broiler chicken, the poultry industry stakeholders during our meeting Tuesday last week, asked that the DAF help them in finding a market for the chicken in the cold storage.
5. While the story, when not fully explained, would look like the government is giving chicken from Bird Flu areas to the evacuees in Marawi City, this is totally untrue. The chicken, in an imaginative switching scheme which I designed, which will go to Marawi City are actually slaughtered complying with Halal standards and do not come Luzon but from Mindanao farms.
6. It is untrue that the Agriculture Department only thought of giving food items to the evacuees now that poultry raisers could not sell their chicken because of the bird flu. Right after the outbreak of conflict in Marawi, the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries has continuously donated food items and rice to the evacuees even if it is not our mandate to do so.
By the way, even if what would be given to soldiers are chicken coming from Luzon, these would be safe to eat.
The President himself ate it to show confidence in the safety of the poultry and poultry products from Central Luzon.
Let me assure my Bangsamoro friends that as a Mindanaoan, I am culture-sensitive and I am fully aware of the Halal requirements.
In fact, I have even issued an order to our officials to investigate closely the process of manufacturing feeds for aqua-marine production and chicken production to make sure that no materials considered as “haram” are mixed with the feeds.
There was never any malice in my declared intention to give the evacuees and soldiers chicken to break the monotonous canned goods food supply that they have been getting.
Given this situation now, I will abide by the orders of President Duterte to just give the chicken to the soldiers and government people.
But honestly, I don’t know how the evacuees would react when they see the soldiers and government men feasting on crispy fried chicken while they only have sardines, noodles and dried fish.
I hope that this incident would give us lessons and the first would be that we in the DAF need to undertake more information dissemination.
Second, I believe that our Bangsamoro leaders should not always look at government actions searching for malice rather than good intentions.
There are still good men with noble intentions in this world and one of them is our President, Rody Duterte.
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