Monday, February 8, 2021

Palace to retailers: Resume SELLING pork. Inquirer Newsletter. February 9, 2021.

SLEEPING ON THE JOB Instead of selling pork at a loss, a vendor chooses to rest on his stall as meat shops at Trabajo Market in Manila closed on Monday, the day the government starts imposing price caps on pork and chicken in Metro Manila. —MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

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LUCKNOW, India—Rescuers searched for more than 200 people missing in the Indian Himalayas on Monday, including some trapped in a tunnel, after part of a glacier broke away, sending a torrent of water, rock and dust down a mountain valley. --REUTERS AND AFP

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As expected, I received varied reactions to my commentary last week regarding the advisability of getting the COVID-19 vaccination. To my surprise, though, an overwhelming majority have negative sentiments at this point about receiving vaccination against COVID-19, even if it’s given for free. —Rafael R. Castillo, MD

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Palace to retailers: Resume SELLING pork

By Leila B. Salaverria and Ronnel W. Domingo

Malacañang on Monday appealed to meat retailers to resume selling pork as it assured them of government assistance and enough supply of pork for Metro Manila consumers.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said the government would bring pork free of African swine fever (ASF) from Mindanao, the Visayas and parts of Luzon to the capital region and would offer hog raisers transport subsidies to bring down farm-gate prices.

Traders and vendors refrained from selling pork and chicken to protest President Duterte’s imposition of a 60-day freeze, starting Monday, on the prices of those meats in public markets and supermarkets in Metro Manila to stem their soaring prices.

Executive Order No. 124 imposes price ceilings on pork shoulder, or “kasim,” and pork leg or ham, or “pigue,” at P270 per kilo, and on pork belly, or “liempo,” at P300.

The price caps meant a definite loss for many “viajeros” or traders who chose to not deliver hogs from farms, said the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (Sinag), an umbrella group of agricultural business organizations.

“The acceptable retail price of pork, given the current situation, is from P330 to P380 per kilo, without government support,” Rosendo So, Sinag chair, said in an interview on Monday.

The group denied any short supply of hogs but said the price caps ordered by Malacañang were lower than the cost of production and prevented producers from going to market.

In Manila, all 17 public markets went on a pork holiday, according to Director Zenaida Mapoy of the Manila Market Administration Office.

In San Andres and Quinta markets, however, stall owners sold their remaining stocks in the morning, Mapoy said. —WITH REPORTS FROM JODEE A. AGONCILLO, MARLON RAMOS, TONETTE OREJAS AND NESTOR CORRALES INQ

Editorial

Who's the terrorist?

At the rate Army Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr. is dispensing threats, he is fast becoming the biggest argument on why the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 is a very dangerous law. Retired Supreme Court associate justices Antonio Carpio and Conchita Carpio Morales called the attention of the high tribunal on Parlade making 'clear threats' against Inquirer.net reporter Tetch Torres Tupas for her story on two Aeta men who told the Supreme Court that they were tortured by the military to admit that they were communist insurgents.

Read full story: opinion.inquirer.net