Colombia eyeing to sell pork, beef to Philippines, envoy says

Colombia is willing to export pork and beef to the Philippines, among other initiatives, Colombian Ambassador to the Philippines Marcela Ordoñez said.

Ordoñez made the disclosure during her presentation of credentials before President Rodrigo Duterte in a ceremony held in Malacañang on Wednesday night.

Her statement comes at a time when the National Capital Region is facing pork and chicken supply woes due to unabated price increases amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the industry being hit by the African Swine Fever that wiped out four million pigs.

The pork and chicken supply problem also took a turn for the worse when vendors refused to sell their goods to avoid further losses as soon as the price ceiling imposed by the President took effect last February 8.

“Let me focus on our bilateral relation and start with commerce. The amount of goods that our two countries exchange has been growing and we wanted to grow a lot more,” she said.

“We are interested in selling pork meat and beef to the Philippines and we would welcome, Mr. President, any support you can give us to accelerate the admissibility process,” she added.

The Palace has already called for a Food Security Summit to address the problem. The summit, however, has yet to be scheduled.

In response to vendors who went on pork holiday, the Department of Agriculture set the wholesale price of pork at P235 per kilo to complement President Duterte’s Executive Order 124 which set a price ceiling of ?270 per kilo for kasim and pigue, ?300 for liempo and ?160 for dressed chicken sold in Metro Manila for 60 days.

Likewise, the Agriculture Department also  implemented a transportation subsidy for pork supply coming from Mindanao, the Visayas and Luzon at P21 per kilo, P15 per kilo and P10 per kilo, respectively.

Such subsidy, however, has yet to improve the pork and even chicken supply in the National Capital Region which prompted industry leaders to call for a summit.

Insurgency problems

Also during the call, Ordoñez offered Colombia’s experience in dealing with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People's Army) and providing the former rebels the pathway to returning to society.

“Mr. President, we are not a country to teach lessons to other countries but we do have several good practices, several best practices that we would like to share.  Allow me just to suggest our program in reintegration for former combatants that now is a four-stage program,” she said.

The four-stage program consists of institutional strengthening, the route to reintegration, community approach and monitoring/evaluation.

“Our two countries have already exchanged talks and best practices on this, but this is something where we believe we could work a lot more,” she said.

The Communist Party of the Philippines has its own armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), which has been consistently tagged by President Duterte as terrorists.

The government’s petition to declare the communists including members of its armed wing NPA as terrorists, however, is still pending before the Manila Regional Trial Court.

Ordoñez also said Colombia is looking forward to increased foreign investment and tourists arrivals between the two countries.

“More and more Colombians are visiting the Philippines and we believe that Colombia has everything that the Filipinos love. We have the culture, we have the music, we have the dance and this brings me to all the exchanges that we hope to have between our countries,” she said.

“Allow me simply to end, Mr. President, by insisting that we look forward to the opening of the Embassy of the Philippines in Colombia because we want to have the Philippines permanently in our capitol. Maraming salamat,” she added. — RSJ, GMA News