Attempted cover-up of ASF

By Leonardo Micua

SOMETHING seems to be amiss in the late detection of recent incidence of African Swine Fever in hogs in Barangay Linoc, Binmaley last week. At the outset, there was an obvious delay in the reporting of the incident to the authorities, a clear breach of the guidelines set by the Department of Agriculture.

Although the first swine death was recorded on December 10 last year, the mass death of hogs in one farm (that followed later) was reported to the Office of the Provincial Veterinarian only on December 27, the last working day of 2019.  And OPVet could only visit Linoc and took blood samples on seven hogs from the farm of one Elma Ferrer on first working day in January for laboratory analysis. That took one week to complete and all the blood samples tested positive of ASF.

And when OPVet returned to the farm to inform the hog owner of the results of the blood testing, all the seven hogs from whom the blood samples were taken, had died and were already buried.

Dr. Jovito Tabajeros, assistant OPVet chief, revealed that Ferrer originally had 34 hogs and 27 of these had died even before OpVet came to the farm. All these, according to Ferrer, including the seven hogs that died later, were buried inside the farm. But many doubted that. Disposing of 34 hogs even by batches requires huge efforts and could only be done faster with a backhoe.

Granting that she really buried the dead hogs, the disposal of the animals was not done properly and not in a clinical manner as required by the DA to ensure that the ASF virus will no longer spread. (When the culling of 21 hogs of different farms was later done in Barangay Linoc by the task force, Dr. Tabarejos had to make use of a backhoe to dig a common grave for the dead hogs that were first poured with disinfectants before they were finally buried.)     

Recall also that when this procedure was done in Barangay Baloling, Mapandan, the DA personnel wore clinical protective gear from head to foot. This, too, was done in Barangay Apalen, Bayambang, the second town that experienced ASF infection.

But what I heard was some of the dying hogs were actually butchered and partaken by their neighbors if not sold in the market. I was informed a member of the Ferrer family is a butcher.   

So, I wonder if the ASF in Binmaley can still be checked. 

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Was there a deliberate delay in the reporting of mass deaths of hogs in Barangay Linoc? It is part of the mandate of the barangay captain to report the incident to town officials but I was informed this did not happen. Could he be part of the conspiracy to hide the onslaught of ASF? I am just wondering.

And why was the matter reported to the OpVet, bypassing the Municipal Agriculture Office?

By the way, there was also an effort to make it appear that the farm where the ASF infection was detected was in Carael, Dagupan City and not Linoc, Binmaley. Why?

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I received a handwritten note from Jaime P. Imbat of JPI Fuel Tech and JPI Fuel Realty Project of Pozorrubio, that discussed briefly the crazy idea of giving a 1-2 solution to the twin problem of flooding and garbage in Dagupan City.

He said the proposed declogging of the Pantal River through scraping and use the silt recovered therefrom to create an artificial island in the middle of the Calmay River to be made as a controlled dumpsite, similar to the one built many years ago in Hongkong. is easier said than done.   

The city does not have P500 million (the estimated cost of the project according to Mr. Imbat) for the rehabilitation of the Pantal River. Besides, if you scrape all the silt from the Pantal River now, a bigger volume of silt from the Sinocalan River and further upstream will cascade downwards to the city, So, scraping would be endless.

Also, not anybody can build an island in the middle of the river at the drop of a hat.  Any reclamation that has to be done needs the consent of the Philippine Reclamation Authority and DENR, (Note: President Duterte is already reluctant to approve the reclamation of 10,000 hectares of the Manila Bay, chiefly for environmental reasons). 

Mr. Imbat apparently had written to Sangguniang Panlungsod of Dagupan on July 19, 2019, articulating the same project and asking the august body to support it.

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