MANILA – With the proliferation of frozen imported meat due to smuggling, lawmakers and hog raisers yesterday called on the public to boycott these imported meat as these may be "unsafe" for human consumption.

AGAP party-list Rep. Nicanor Briones, Agham party-list Rep. Angelo Palmones and Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teddy Casiño also said smuggling and over-importation are killing the livestock industry.

To cut down on the losses, the lawmakers said the declaration of a "pork and chicken holiday" by hog growers is "inevitable."

Palmones also chided the Bureau of Customs and the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Animal Industry for their failure to stop rampant smuggling and uncontrolled importation.

"The smuggler-importers’ modus operandi is to scald the imported meat with hot water just so it could be sold in the wet markets. This abhorable act must be stopped immediately because the unscrupulous importers are endangering the health of the public," Palmones said.

He said exposing chilled meat without proper thawing results in the meat absorbing bacteria and pathogens that endanger the health of the unsuspecting consuming public.

Briones, meanwhile, said the importers can bring down the price because "they don’t pay the right levies."

"The choice cuts, which should have been levied 40 percent, were being passed off as offals, skin and rind that were levied five percent," he said.

Meanwhile, hog growers led by Abono party-list chairman and Swine Development Council director Rosendo So said chillers would be an added cost for the market vendors.

As such, So said these importer-smugglers scald the meat with hot water before delivering the meat to the wet markets and sold alongside the fresh meat, thus making the product health risk to human.

He advised the consumers that they could identify the scalded meat because it looks paler than the fresh meat.

According to So, smuggled imported meat was being sold P6 to P10 a kilo cheaper than the fresh meat.

He also lamented the increase of importation of pork, chicken, beef, buffalo from 2005 to 2011.

In terms of volume, So said the increase was from 200 million kilos in 2005 to 408 million kilos in 2011.

"What I have always been saying is that the problem is not in the MAV (minimum access volume) but the volume of offal importation which is abused by importers through technical smuggling," he noted.

In 2010, So said the United Nations data show 56 million kilos of offal entered the country. However, based on the DA-BAI records, figures show 105 million kilos have entered the country.

In 2011, he said the United Nations data show 51 million kilos of offal were imported by the country but BAI figures show 114 million kilos.

"The discrepancies can only mean that 49 million kilos were smuggled in 2010 and 63 million kilos were smuggled in 2011," said So.

He said the undervaluation and misdeclaration of the offal had killed the local backyard industry with total losses valued at P25 billion.

"This translates to a decrease of almost two million heads of pigs for the past two years," So noted.*AFP

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