BACOLOD City – A councilor called on concerned agencies to look into cheap meat sold in public markets in the city.
Councilor Bartolome Orola, chairman of the Sangguniang Panlungsod Committee on Markets and Slaughterhouse, wanted to know if these passed sanitary inspections.
Orola claimed he has received “reports” that these were actually “imported” bad meat – a cause for health concern – and hence priced low.
He asked the City Health Office, the City Veterinary Office and the National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS) to investigate.
According to Orola, the public must be protected from “unreasonable risks of injury and hazard to health.”
“It is a policy of the state to ensure food security and provide safety and quality standards for customer products related to agriculture,” said the councilor.
Moreover, Orola cited the Meat Inspection Code of the Philippines, specifically Section 32, which mandates the NMIS to conduct an examination and, when necessary, a laboratory analysis of imported meat and meat products after the products are approved for release by the National Veterinary Quarantine Service at ports of entry.
“No person, firm or corporation shall sell, transport, offer, or receive for sale or transportation in commerce” meat and meat products, or carcasses or parts thereof “required to be inspected under this Act unless they have been so inspected and passed,” he said, citing the law’s Section 48./PN
