PIG-BRAINED. A lobotomy maybe of acute necessity for the local government of Porac with the reality of the Pandi piggeries in Bulacan virtually wiped out in the government’s efforts to contain the Ebola Reston virus.
Tuesday’s Punto! provided the brief of the syndrome thus: “Kabuhayan sa Pandi, kasamang namatay sa ginawang depopulation (Livelihood in Pandi died along with the depopulation (of its piggeries).”
Continued the Punto! diagnosis yesterday: “400 litro ng disinfectant gagamitin sa paglilinis ng babuyang may Ebola (400 liters of disinfectant to be used in cleaning piggeries infected with Ebola).”
The clean-up drive will take all of one week to destroy whatever remains of the virus in the piggeries after their 6,210 pigs were culled, burned and buried.
Earlier, the Bureau of Animal Industry was reported to have decreed that the affected piggeries could not be operational within six months at the least.
Within that period the BAI will keep so-called sentinel pigs at the piggeries to serve as…well, guinea pigs, for testing if the Ebola Reston virus remained.
A related story also in yesterday’s Punto!: “Bayad sa babuyang may Ebola naantala (Indemnification of Ebola-affected piggeries delayed)”
“We don’t have indemnity funds available at the moment, so we should work hard to have indemnity funds.” No money.
So spake Dr. Romeo Manalili, regional veterinarian, on his office’s abject lack of funds to pay for the 6,210 pigs destroyed.
Sordid realities all that can just as easily occur anywhere where there are piggeries. As they did in Pandi.
Porac, specifically Barangays Sta. Cruz and Manibaug Paralaya, with large-scale piggeries is most susceptible to what we could very well call the “Pandi Syndrome.”
For a number of years now, residents of the two mentioned barangays and the nearby areas of Angeles City have been complaining of the stench emanating from these piggeries.
Not a few – including special children at a school run by Catholic nuns in Barangay Siñura – have pointed to the piggeries as the cause of their respiratory and skin ailments.
This contention we shall never tire of repeating whenever the issue of the Porac piggeries is taken. As a study made on piggeries in Majayjay, Laguna determined: “Animal wastes are carriers of diseases (Delgado, et al., 1999). Some of the components of pig waste that have direct adverse effects on human health are pathogens, nitrates, and hydrogen sulfide.
“Pathogens can contaminate water and cause gastrointestinal diseases. These microorganisms are 10 to 100 times more concentrated in hog waste than in human waste, which is diluted with water in sewage treatment plants.”
Still, in the face of such clear and present danger to the people, in the din of complaints, and protest actions too, the local government of Porac has done nothing constructive to alleviate the sufferings of its constituencies.
When the Ebola Reston virus case arose in Pandi, the least expected of the Porac LGU was to express some concerns too over the piggeries in its midst. It met the issue with its characteristic indifference.
When the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement called on government agencies, particularly the Health and Agriculture departments to initiate a thorough inspection of the Porac piggeries, if only to assure the people that they are safe from the Ebola Reston virus, this was what Porac Mayor Roger Santos had to say: “No comment.”
While not a few of those suffering from the stench of the piggeries have raised that million-peso question about some scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours mutuality between the piggeries and the Porac LGU, I would still want to give them – the mayor, the sangguniang bayan, and the barangay chairmen – some benefit of the doubt.
Perhaps, their continuous exposure to some publicly unknown benefits accruing from the stench of the piggeries could have addled their brains, no, could have morphed their brain mass into hog mass.
Utak-babi, as my favorite pulkero (butcher) says. Good only for batsui.
Tuesday’s Punto! provided the brief of the syndrome thus: “Kabuhayan sa Pandi, kasamang namatay sa ginawang depopulation (Livelihood in Pandi died along with the depopulation (of its piggeries).”
Continued the Punto! diagnosis yesterday: “400 litro ng disinfectant gagamitin sa paglilinis ng babuyang may Ebola (400 liters of disinfectant to be used in cleaning piggeries infected with Ebola).”
The clean-up drive will take all of one week to destroy whatever remains of the virus in the piggeries after their 6,210 pigs were culled, burned and buried.
Earlier, the Bureau of Animal Industry was reported to have decreed that the affected piggeries could not be operational within six months at the least.
Within that period the BAI will keep so-called sentinel pigs at the piggeries to serve as…well, guinea pigs, for testing if the Ebola Reston virus remained.
A related story also in yesterday’s Punto!: “Bayad sa babuyang may Ebola naantala (Indemnification of Ebola-affected piggeries delayed)”
“We don’t have indemnity funds available at the moment, so we should work hard to have indemnity funds.” No money.
So spake Dr. Romeo Manalili, regional veterinarian, on his office’s abject lack of funds to pay for the 6,210 pigs destroyed.
Sordid realities all that can just as easily occur anywhere where there are piggeries. As they did in Pandi.
Porac, specifically Barangays Sta. Cruz and Manibaug Paralaya, with large-scale piggeries is most susceptible to what we could very well call the “Pandi Syndrome.”
For a number of years now, residents of the two mentioned barangays and the nearby areas of Angeles City have been complaining of the stench emanating from these piggeries.
Not a few – including special children at a school run by Catholic nuns in Barangay Siñura – have pointed to the piggeries as the cause of their respiratory and skin ailments.
This contention we shall never tire of repeating whenever the issue of the Porac piggeries is taken. As a study made on piggeries in Majayjay, Laguna determined: “Animal wastes are carriers of diseases (Delgado, et al., 1999). Some of the components of pig waste that have direct adverse effects on human health are pathogens, nitrates, and hydrogen sulfide.
“Pathogens can contaminate water and cause gastrointestinal diseases. These microorganisms are 10 to 100 times more concentrated in hog waste than in human waste, which is diluted with water in sewage treatment plants.”
Still, in the face of such clear and present danger to the people, in the din of complaints, and protest actions too, the local government of Porac has done nothing constructive to alleviate the sufferings of its constituencies.
When the Ebola Reston virus case arose in Pandi, the least expected of the Porac LGU was to express some concerns too over the piggeries in its midst. It met the issue with its characteristic indifference.
When the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement called on government agencies, particularly the Health and Agriculture departments to initiate a thorough inspection of the Porac piggeries, if only to assure the people that they are safe from the Ebola Reston virus, this was what Porac Mayor Roger Santos had to say: “No comment.”
While not a few of those suffering from the stench of the piggeries have raised that million-peso question about some scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours mutuality between the piggeries and the Porac LGU, I would still want to give them – the mayor, the sangguniang bayan, and the barangay chairmen – some benefit of the doubt.
Perhaps, their continuous exposure to some publicly unknown benefits accruing from the stench of the piggeries could have addled their brains, no, could have morphed their brain mass into hog mass.
Utak-babi, as my favorite pulkero (butcher) says. Good only for batsui.
