Samal Island has intensified its checkpoints to prevent the entry of African Swine Fever (ASF) after Cotabato province logged new cases of ASF.

The City Veterinary Office said the local government has banned the entry of live hogs, pork meat, and pork products.

Checkpoints in the ports of Caliclic, Kinawitnon, Davsam, and Mae Wess were beefed up.

“Live na baboy ginabawal nato especially kung wala gyuy mga documents. Only mga commercial farms with negative ASF test from DA, kato ra gyud ang atong i-allow,” City Veterinary Office Head, Dr. Edunel Sala, said.

The intensified checkpoints are part of the measures put in place to prevent the entry of ASF in the island after 18 barangays in Cotabato logged new cases of ASF.

According to the report of the Office of the Provincial Veterinary (OPVet) of Cotabato, up to 958 pigs have tested positive for ASF, so far, and have been depopulated.

Though Samal Island has already recovered from the effects of ASF in the previous years through hog repopulation initiatives in 2022, backyard hog raisers are still struggling as they could not sell pigs outside the city due to the guidelines implemented by the Bureau of Animal Industry.

“Even though wala na mi kaso, but with the Bureau of Animal Industry ang nag-set sa maong guidelines so only commercial farms lang man gyud ang Ilang i-allow provided nga naka blood sampling sila,” Sala said.

“In the case of Samal wherein 99 percent of our raisers are backyard raisers, dili gyud sila i-allow nga makagawas,” he added.

The local government is urging tourists to patronize pork meat sold within the city.

“Akong request sa mga turista, if they want to go to Samal, if gusto nila mamalit og lechon, mas maayo nga diri na lang sila sa Samal mag-order og lechon to support also our local farmers,” Sala said.