Agriculture Secretary William Dar and Quezon governor David Suarez, along with the “One DA” family and local government officials, witnessed the arrival of 1,350 live hogs from General Santos City (GenSan) and South Cotabato that form part of the “whole-of-nation” measures to increase the supply of pork and reduce prices of pork products in Metro Manila.
The hogs, kept in 13 trucks on board a roll-on-roll-off (“ro-ro”) vessel that sailed from General Santos on February 14, and arrived at the Talao-Talao Port in Lucena City on Feb. 16.
“Majority of the shipment, totaling 875 hogs, came from Q Pigs and Wilco Farms in GenSan and South Cotabato,” Dar said.
More than 26 metric tons of live hogs were also shipped from General Santos courtesy of the Koronadal Valley Livestock Growers Cooperative recently.
“The live hog shipments continue to pass through a special hog lane.”
The live hog shipments continue to pass through a “special hog lane,” the agriculture chief said, allowing the unhampered transport and delivery to government-certified slaughterhouses, and will be sold at Metro Manila public markets, following the imposed price ceiling of pork from P270/kg to P300/kg under Executive Order 124.
More than 38,000 live hogs and 150,167 kg of carcass have been shipped to Metro Manila from areas free of the African swine fever nationwide, with Region 4A (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and, Quezon) sharing 50 percent.