ANGELES CITY- Chicken meat vendors at the city public market in Barangay Pampang here have reported ostracism by consumers over avian flu which hit poultries in San Luis town some 35 kilometers south. This has made them “feel like lepers.”
As of yesterday morning, only 20 of 100 fresh chicken meat stalls at the city market were open, as most of the vendors have closed shop since the Monday after news of avian flu in San Luiz spread.
“No one is buying our chicken anymore,” said Miling Sunga, 70, one of the 20 vendors who persisted in selling some chicken for want of some earnings.
Sunga said she used to sell some 200 fresh chickens per day at the city market, a major source of food supplies of restaurants and other food-related establishments not only in this city, but also in other parts of Pampanga and even Tarlac province.
“It’s almost noon now but I still have one kilo of chicken unsold,” she lamented.
Vendor Ernesto Meneses, 57, said people even avoid passing in the alleys between stalls assigned to chicken meat at the city market.
“They not only keep away from buying chicken. They also avoid the area of chicken stalls. We feel like lepers,” he said.
Meneses said that people started to stay away from chicken starting the other Monday. “I barbecued all the chicken I was selling, and it was just for my family,” he added.
Nelson Caranto, president of the Pampang Market Vendors Association, said he used to bring 10,000 heads of chicken per day into the city market, but reduced this to only 2,000 heads since the slump on chicken sales.
His vice president Baby Velasco said despite assurances from the government that chicken from areas outside the controlled zone around San Luis are safe to eat, customers have not returned.
“The cost of our chickens dropped from P130 per kilo to only P90 per kilo, but still, the customers are not there. We don’t know what to do anymore,” she said.
Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan led other city officials at the market Friday for a lunch of friend chicken prepared by the vendors to show that chickens sold there are safe to eat.
Pamintuan cited the need for the Department of Agriculture to “calibrate” its information drive so as the remove the paranoia of consumers and make them realize that outside the controlled avian flu zone, chickens are safe.
