The Bago City government is setting up checkpoints starting Monday, March 4, to prevent the entry of pigs and pork products from Bacolod City and other African swine fever red zones, Mayor Nicholas Yulo said Friday.
He said the checkpoints will be set up at barangays Tabunan and Taloc in compliance with the executive order issued by Negros Occidental Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson.
Lacson issued an Executive Order EO 24-07 Series of 2024 on Monday, totally banning the entry into Negros Occidental of all pigs, boar semen and pork products from areas with reported cases of ASF in order to protect and enable the hog industry of the province to recover.
The EO bans the entry of such products from Bacolod City, Negros Oriental, Luzon, Mindanao, Region 8, Panay Island, Guimaras Island, Province of Cebu, Camotes Island , Bantayan Island and countries affected with ASF as declared by the Department of Agriculture.
Yulo said “the ideal is to check every vehicle but I’m sure that would be very hard to do”. They usually flag down open vehicles, he said.
They will also monitor where pork being sold in Bago markets and stores are coming from, Yulo said.
Yulo said Bago suffered from a lot of pig deaths from hog cholera last year, but had no confirmed ASF case.*