By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said yesterday he has yet to receive a reply from Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia over his request to lift the entry ban on pork and pork products from Negros.

Lacson forwarded a request letter to Garcia last week as local hog raisers groups in Negros expressed alarm as they cannot ship their products to Eastern Visayas via Cebu.

He also suggested some alternatives for them to ship their products to Metro Manila instead. However, they refused due to the low price of pork in the country’s capital region.

Lacson said commercial hog raisers groups are asking for their goods to be allowed to pass through Cebu province bound for markets in Leyte.

The entry of pork and pork products from Cebu, except for canned goods, has been prohibited by the Negros Occidental provincial government as part of the protocols against African swine fever (ASF).

Previously, canned goods were also included in the pork ban.

According to Lacson, the food supply in Negros Occidental will be negatively affected as most of the processed and canned pork products being imported into the province were from Cebu.

Currently, Cebu province’s Carcar City reported that 58 of the 149 hogs have tested positive for ASF.

Local authorities in Cebu are now monitoring the situation.

Earlier, Garcia issued an executive order implementing a temporary ban on the entry of live hogs, sows, piglets, boar semen, pork, and pork-related products from Negros Island into Cebu from March 6 to April 5, 2023.

The order came after ASF was detected in Carcar. The ASF-positive swine allegedly mingled with pigs from Negros, the report said.

However, Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental remain ASF-free.

Negros Occidental has already implemented strict biosecurity protocols against ASF since December of last year.

The province is also one of the top backyard hog producers in the country, with an industry pegged at more than P6 billion./DGB, WDJ