The City Veterinary Office (CVO) here is encouraging hog raisers who have not registered yet with the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC) and the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) to soon enlist their swine for insurance coverage.

City Veterinary Officer Dr. Emmanuel Estipona, in an interview on Monday, said around 1,500 hog raisers had already registered, but more have yet to enlist.

“They should immediately register in order for them to avail of the insurance benefits for their pigs,” Estipona said.

Under the new insurance coverage scheme, he said, the PCIC would pay PHP10,000 per hog that is insured if it becomes ill.

“If a pig becomes infected with ASF (African swine fever) after it was placed under the insurance coverage, the owner could file a claim for the ill but covered hog,” Estipona said.

Meanwhile, he said the CVO has offered Mayor Noel E. Rosal the purchase of live hogs from ASF-free localities to be distributed to all the meat vendors here at a very reasonable price to help solve the problem on very low supply of pigs resulting in high prices of pork in the market.

“Buying of more pigs from other places would be considered as one of the economic enterprises that will bring additional income on the part of the city government. This scheme can also control the continuous increase of prices of meat products that burden the consuming public,” he added.

Estipona said the mayor earlier issued an Executive Order (EO) preventing hog buyers from outside Legazpi to buy pigs in the city to prevent scarcity of meat supply.

”We are also encouraging the hog raisers to engage in ‘Babuyang walang amoy’ to help increase the volume of pigs in the community”, he added.

He commended the inspection team and all the barangay officials for always monitoring the stockyards within their respective villages as part of preventing the entry of the infected pigs, which has made Legazpi an ASF-free city.

Estipona said he requested the 70 village chiefs to monitor stockyards in their respective localities, and issue a barangay clearance certifying the origin of the hog as it would serve as a reference for accepting pigs for slaughtering services at the Class AA Abattoir in order to prevent the possible entry of ASF in Legazpi.