KALIBO, Aklan-- Around 13 kilos of alleged contaminated meat was confiscated Sunday, June 9, 2019 by the Quarantine section of the Kalibo International Airport (KIA).
Doctor Christine Lyn Melgarejo, veterinarian officer III of the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), said that 11 kilos of the said meat was contaminated from a South Korean tourist Sunday evening. Another two kilos was confiscated from a Chinese tourist Sunday afternoon.
On Friday, June 7, the KIA has burned some 100 kilos of the said contaminated meat at the Kalibo dumpsite. The confiscated meat was recovered at the KIA from arriving Chinese and South Korean tourists at the KIA in the previous weeks.
“Since last year (2018), we received a memorandum from the central office to confiscate meat products that are suspected to be contaminated coming from different countries at the KIA. Most of those meat were placed inside the luggage and we wonder why they were still able to enter the airport,” Melgarejo said.
The meat some of those were intestines were being brought by the tourists as their personal consumption on their vacation to Boracay Island. The meat was monitored by the Bureau of Customs at the KIA and then informs the quarantine personnel.
“We then fumes it before placing it in our storage facility. After some time we burned it,” Melgarejo added.
She added that it will put up local meat products at risk if they were mixed with suspected contaminated meat from abroad.
The KIA welcomes 35 flights daily many of whom were direct flights coming from different cities and provinces in China and South Korea. Almost all of these foreign flights has tourists bound to Boracay Island. (SunStar Philippines)