Friday, January 12, 2007 'Hot' meat burned By Marna H. Dagumboy
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- Combined agents of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the Department of Agriculture (DA) on Thursday burned P20 million worth of smuggled and rotten meat -- seized last November at the Kayabe Ice Plant and Cold Storage in Mexico -- at the Kalangitan landfill in Capas, Tarlac.
The burning of the alleged hot meat was confirmed by DA officials here.
The confiscation of the meat -- supposedly "missing" from the BOC since two months ago -- was the result of an investigation conducted by operatives of the BOC, the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), and the Pampanga Provincial Police Office (PPO).
The investigation conducted was a follow-up on the loss of approximately two container vans of meat from China, which came in the country on August 27. The consignee was named as the Asia Marketing Corporation (AMC).
Recently, the BOC has ordered to condemn meat coming from China because of the outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) and bird flu in the said country.
With this, BOC Commissioner Napoleon Morales has directed his men to validate the importation documents of the entrepreneur who rented the said cold storage space at Kayabe and see if these are legal or not.
Morales said anybody can import so long as the documents for importation are complete and legal.
He warned the people trying to smuggle rotten meat in the country. He also assured that the people involved in the incident will be dealt with accordingly.
On November 10, four container vans with P3.2 million worth of smuggled meat from China were also seized by combined agents of the Municipal Government of Guagua, the DA and the PNP Regional Intelligence and Investigation Division (RIID) apparently to be disposed of and dumped in Barangay Dila-dila, Sta. Rita.
The shipment was earlier declared as frozen mackerel but contained frozen chicken and pork from China. It added that the consignee might have misdeclared the shipment in order to skirt the meat restriction.
