President Rody Duterte leads the campaign to assure consumers that the country’s poultry products are safe to eat when he joins poultry stakeholders in a “boodle fight” consisting of “Balut,” chicken BBQ and fried ducks in Pampanga on Monday.
“Ako daw dapat ang magkain ng “balut” para malaman ng mga tao na safe na,” I overheard him saying as he instructed the Presidential Management Staff to squeeze into his tight schedule my request for him to support the poultry industry.
The President talked to me by phone on Tuesday after I requested for a brief time to give him updates on the on-going efforts of the Agriculture Department to contain the Bird Flu outbreak in three towns in Pampanga and Nueva Ecija.
The PMS finally found a small window on Monday to allow the President to join poultry, duck and quail farmers in the “boodle fight” titled “Sama-Sama, Tulong-Tulong sa Pagbangon at Pagsulong.”
The event will be held in San Fernando, Pampanga.
The idea to involve the President in restoring consumers’ confidence that Philippine poultry products are safe to eat was proposed by industry stakeholders during a forum and dialogue which I conducted on Monday through the Philippine Council for Agriculture and Fisheries.
Poultry stakeholders said President Duterte’s endorsement by eating balut, barbecue and fried duck will end the slump in the sales of poultry and poultry products following the Bird Flu scare.
From a high of P90 per kilo, broiler chicken prices plummeted to P25 per kilo causing massive losses to poultry raisers.
Joining the President in the “boodle fight” on Monday will be key officials of the administration including former President and now Pampanga representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and local officials.
Checks representing payments to farmers whose chicken, ducks and quails were culled as part of the quarantine efforts will also be released on Monday.
The Agriculture Department has already downloaded P51-M to the Regional Office III and San Luis town while another P20-M in no-collateral, no-interest loans is also being readied.
Additional funds for the farmers of Jaen and San Isidro in Nueva Ecija will also be downloaded.
Also to be recognised on Monday are the men and women who worked day and night to contain the Bird Flu outbreak in Central Luzon, including local government employees, Office of Civil Defense Personnel, Department of Health officers, Bureau of Animal Industry and Department of Agriculture officials and employees and the hundreds of army soldiers and policemen who joined the culling operations and the manning of the quarantine stations.
In two weeks time, the spread of the virus was contained to just three areas with the effective and strict implementation of quarantine measures.
The culling operations in Jaen and San Isidro, Nueva Ecija ended last night while the disinfection operations are on-going in San Luis, Pampanga.
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