DA halts plan to deliver chicken to Marawi evacuees

The Department of Agriculture (DA) will no longer distribute chicken meat to Marawi evacuees.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said President Duterte ordered him to forgo the plan amid opposition from local officials.

“They misinterpreted that the chicken meat is affected with bird flu. It’s nothing like that,” Piñol said in a chance interview.

“We also want to help the poultry industry because our cold storage facilities are now full. I asked the President if we can give our extra supply to the evacuees,” he said.

The move is seen to help the poultry sector recover amid the bird flu outbreak in Pampanga and Nueva Ecija.

The prices of chicken in markets in Metro Manila dropped despite the DA’s assurance that the chicken are free from bird flu.

Piñol cited a Muslim leader who was furious over the DA’s plan to give away chickens.

“Is this the best thing they can think of? Even if it is certified safe by the Department of Health, what do they think of us, third class citizens? They’ve al- ways treated us like trash so they send their trash to us,” Piñol quoted the official as saying.

The DA chief clarified that the chicken meat to be brought to Marawi would not come from poultry farms in Luzon.

Piñol said the chicken meat would be shipped to the cold storage of Ana’s Breeder Farm in Davao City.

“It is not true that the DA only thought of giving food items to the evacuees now that poultry raisers could not sell their chicken because of the bird flu,” Piñol said.

“There was never any malice in my...intention to give the evacuees and soldiers chicken to break the monotonous canned goods ...that they have been getting,” he said.

Piñol said they would no longer send the chicken meat, knowing that they would be blamed if the evacuees get sick even if it is not caused by eating chicken.

He said the chicken meat would instead be delivered to feed soldiers and other government personnel deployed in Marawi.

Piñol said he is just waiting for the go-signal from the President to start the delivery.