A GROUP of pork producers urges the government to reclassify frozen pork jowls as swine meat, arguing that the tariff gap disrupts the local industry and gives imported pork cuts an undue advantage.
The Pork Producers Federation of the Philippines Inc. (ProPork) pushes to remove the current tariff treatment for standalone imported pork jowls and instead apply the 30-percent in-quota and 40-percent out-quota tariff rates.
ProPork wants the government to classify standalone pork jowls, imported separately from the pig’s head, as pork meat. They plan to create a distinct national tariff line for frozen pork jowls.
Currently, imports of pork jowls face a 10 percent tariff rate.
ProPork contends that the pork jowl arriving in the Philippines as a separate cut of meat, without the head, should not receive the tariff treatment designated for edible offal just because it originates from the pig’s head.
The group emphasizes that standalone pork jowls sold in the Philippines compete with locally produced pork by serving as separate cuts and substitutes.
The group points out that imported pork jowls reach the archipelago as food ingredients, commonly used in popular dishes like sisig and maskara. They also consider it a cheaper substitute for pork belly and bacon.
ProPork highlights that imported pork jowls face lower import duties than other pork imports, which are currently at 15 percent in-quota and 25 percent out-quota, resulting in a “substantial” tariff gap.
“The current disparity creates an obvious commercial incentive,” ProPork vice chair Rolando Tambago and president Eric Harina state.
“The government should not maintain a… tariff advantage for a product that directly competes with pork meat while imposing a substantially higher tariff burden on competing pork products,” they added.
ProPork highlights that the Department of Agriculture (DA) distinguishes between standalone jowls and jowls still attached to the head, stating that they should treat standalone jowls as swine meat.
Such distinctions already appear in the Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Standards’ Philippine National Standard for edible offals, with the 2024 edition removing jowl, mask, cheek meat, head meat, and related head cuts from the list of edible offals.
The European Union’s classification further supports this by categorizing boneless meat of the fore-end presented alone — which includes jowls — as frozen boneless pork meat.
Tambago and Harina emphasize that the local hog industry grapples with African Swine Fever, exacerbated by production losses, rising input costs, and intense import competition. (Jordeene B. Lagare © Philippine Daily Inquirer)
