Purge Manila’s Wet Markets of Smuggled Poultry Meat
The Holiday season brings with it a high demand for all sorts of consumer goods. There is a therefore a need for pertinent public authorities to monitor the flow of goods more closely to better protect and promote consumer interests during the season.
For civil society organizations like ours, we aim to help our public agencies in ways we can. We are thus writing this statement to bring to bring attention our observations that are of especial concern for both consumers and relevant sub-sectors of local business.
Based on market visits of members of our consumer rights advocacy group Bantay Konsumer, Kalsada at Kuryente (BK3) conducted in mid-December 2022, there has been a notable proliferation of imported chicken/poultry products in certain wet markets of Manila.
For the consuming public, this is a welcome situation as the price of poultry meat is brought down by the seemingly “excellent” supply conditions.
However, a more measured scrutiny of the products in the market suggest that these could very well be smuggled and violative of specific government policies that are meant to protect our consuming public from unscrupulous business practices and potentially unsafe food products.
In wet markets of Manila, the following have been observed by BK3’s market inspection teams:
1. On the boxes of many poultry meat products being sold there is nothing written about who the distributor is and there are no stickers on the items from the National meat Inspection Service (NMIS);
2. The brand and product information are not openly and visually posted in the stores;
3. Only the salesperson knows the name of the product unless you ask about the product.
4. Consumers will not immediately know where the imported chicken meat comes from because there is no product name/label.
Further, there is no specific date as to when the chickens were slaughtered, dressed, processed, and repacked. Worse, there is no indication if it was repacked in an accredited facility with Food Safety NMIS stamps. These above mentioned observations are prima facie evidence of a direct violation of the food safety and food labelling regulations, particularly key provisions of DOH A.O. No. 2014-0030 or the Revised Rules and Regulations Governing the Labeling of Packaged Food Products; and, Republic Act No. 7394 (Consumer Act of the Philippines).
The presence of these products in our markets and the malpractice of not properly labeling these food products exposes the consuming public a potential health risk as there is no producer made accountable for the safety and quality as required law.
On another level, questions that beg to be answered given the proliferation of such products are “where these poultry products come from?” And “are they not smuggled goods?”
We have received feedback from local poultry producers that much of the chicken available in the markets could be smuggled items hence the non-compliance with labeling requirements.
Therefore, these improperly labelled or unlabeled poultry meat are not only a threat to the health of consumers but to the health as well of our local poultry industry whose products are being crowded out by tons of smuggled chicken.
We strongly call on our officials to stop the influx of smuggled poultry which poses a clear and present danger to the health of consumers and threatens the viability of our local poultry meat producers already in crisis in this volatile economic environment.