An estimated P1.4 million worth of undocumented table eggs from Cebu province’s Bantayan Island were confiscated and burned by quarantine personnel upon arrival at Bredco Port in Bacolod City earlier this week, the City Veterinary Office (CVO) confirmed yesterday.

The shipment of 240,000 pieces or 8,000 trays of eggs arrived in this city on January 5, records showed.

“The permit of the shipper has already expired and no other pertinent documents were also presented,” Dr. Maria Agueda de la Torre, city veterinarian, said in a statement.

The shipping permit is being issued by the Bureau of Animal Industry-National Veterinary Quarantine Services Division (BAI).

Last December, the Negros Occidental provincial government and the city government jointly prohibited the entry of live birds and poultry products such as meat and eggs from areas affected by the highly pathogenic avian influenza or bird flu, particularly Luzon, Mindanao, and the neighboring islands of Panay and Guimaras.

Negros Occidental has a P8 billion poultry industry and is among the top poultry-producing provinces in the country.

However, Bantayan is the province’s traditional supplier of table eggs, with some 7.4 million eggs even brought in from the neighboring island in December, records from the Provincial Veterinary Office (PVO) earlier showed.

As part of the enforcement operations on the poultry ban, composite teams from the PVO, CVO, Department of Agriculture, and BAI-VQS in Western Visayas are being deployed in the city’s major ports to prevent the entry of prohibited and undocumented poultry products.

In Western Visayas, the ban covers the Panay Island provinces of Iloilo, Capiz, Antique, and Aklan.

Exemptions are allowed for raw poultry meat, both processed and unprocessed; day-old chicks and hatching eggs, including broiler, layer, and breeder; and embryonated eggs, popularly known as “balut.”

These commodities will be allowed entry regardless of shipping origin subject to compliance with requirements. (PNA)