Boy Scout Roy B. Babas, in memoriam

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Peter Jimenea

 Iloilo City
July 11, 2015

Resource persons:

RTD Wendam

1. Dr. Joyce Wendam, regional technical director for research and regulatory services, DA-6
2. Juvy Gaton, chief info officer, DA-6
3. Earl James Ogates, info officer, DA-6

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Our discussion today with resource persons from the Department of Agriculture (DA) Region 6, invites us to take a second look at Passi City, the only component city of Iloilo Province, which incidentally puts the older, bigger and richer Iloilo City to shame.




All talks about Iloilo City as "most liveable city in the Philippines," and cheers of regaining the title "Queen City of the South" from Cebut and slogans "I am Yrong-Yrong!" and "Proud to be Yronggo!" are nothing but a sham. They should be taken out of city halls propaganda lexicon for being deceitful.

What about the grand title "World Mayor #5Dr.PhD(1.0)"? Well, give it to the man out of respect for his right to free speech or right to hallucinate.

Earl James Ogates

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Iloilo City Kgd. Plaridel Nava should make good his statement of probing the abattoir, not just for the “tuklo” (theft) issue but for public health as well. Despite hundreds of millions poured by the national government on it, the abattoir is a ticking time bomb to the people's health and lives.

The Iloilo City-owned abattoir at Tacas, Pavia town has repeatedly tied but failed the NMIS standards. Despite having received some P200 M from the DA, it remains unhygienic: it's conveyor chain conked out in 2010, merely months since Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog assumed his first term of office, and never recovered since then.

The animals are slaughtered and processed on the concrete floor – mixing it up with slime and grime – instead of being suspended on conveyors.

The facility is a bad neighbor; its drainage system is primitive which makes it a target of unsavory comments from residents because it emits foul odor as its solid and liquid wastes spill into public drainage canals though it has a septic tank to trap them.

“We cannot do about it,” notes Juvy Gaton, DA-6 chief information officer. “The DA already did its share of providing the funds: the implementation rests on the the local government.”

Passi City, in contrast

Joel Estuche

Dr. Joyce Wendam, regional technical director for research and regulatory services, DA-6, reports that the department has earmarked P200 M plus to concrete 28 kilometers of provincial road in Passi City and is allotting additional funds to upgrade its slaughterhouse from “Double A” to “Triple A”.

Passi (pop. 65,000) became city in the '90s from a law sponsored by Rep. Narciso Monfort (+). In the early 2000's it built an abattoir from the P45M loan from LandBank. It is “Double A” and about the most hygienic and most efficient there is on Panay Island as one of the country's biggest meat distributor, Monterey, contracted it to process cattle and pork. Its produce is fetched daily by a fleet of refrigerated vans for transport to other Panay provinces  and to Metro Manila.

Triple A abattoirs have blast freezers that turn meat cuts to ice in seconds and fit for export other countries while double A's don't have blast freezers but are allowed to ship processed meat beyond the borders of the municipality/city to other places in the Philippines.

The PRDP (Philippine Rural Development Program) offered a similar package to other provinces but picked Iloilo Province among the earliest partners because Gov. Arthur D. Defensor, Sr. quickly accepted the condition of putting up counterpart equivalent to 10 percent of the total budget.

“We chose Passi City for the concreting of provincial roads within its area because we are also eyeing to upgrade its abattoir to Triple A,” explains Wendam.

The National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS), an attached agency of the DA, sets the standards of abattoirs and is accredits them. 

Iloilo is the country's third largest grower of swine.