DILG tells LGUs to ensure policies vs ASF consistent with national gov't directives
The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) on Sunday urged local government units (LGUs) to ensure that their executive orders (EOs) imposing a ban on the entry of hogs and other related products in their area to prevent the spread of African swine fever (ASF) are aligned and consistent with the national policies and directives.
In a memorandum, DILG Officer-in-Charge Bernardo Florece Jr. said LGUs should strictly follow the nationwide policy on the unhampered flow of cargoes stipulated in Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) Resolution No. 14 and Presidential Administrative Order No. 22, series of 2020, to mitigate the ASF in the country amid the pandemic.
Florence urged LGUs to conduct an immediate review of their executive orders and align their objectives, without delay, with presidential and national issuances on the prevention and control of ASF.
While LGUs have the power to issue orders within their jurisdiction, he said the orders must always be consistent with national policies and directives.
He said failure on the part of the LGU to comply with the directives would lead to reprimand and/or issuance of show cause orders.
The local chief executive may face charges in case of repeated breaches of the directives, he added.
Meanwhile, Interior Undersecretary and spokesperson Jonathan Malaya reminded LGUs that their EOs must not impede the flow of cargoes across LGU boundaries.
“Although the conscientious efforts of LGUs to mitigate the spread of the ASF in their respective jurisdictions are needed, they still have to ensure that their local policies and directive are aligned and consistent with those of the national government,” Malaya said.
Malaya said the actions of LGUs must be coordinated with the Department of Agriculture (DA) field offices for consistency with the ASF zoning classification system.
Under the DA’s zoning plan, the two ASF zone classifications are Containment Zone where concerted activities are implemented to contain ASF and isolate the ASF disease towards full eradication, and Free Zone (Dark Green), which is the geographical limit that remains free from the ASF virus.
Included in the Containment Zone are the Infected Zone (Red) which includes provinces with confirmed ASF cases; Surveillance Zone (Yellow) which includes provinces that are high-risk areas because of the dense population of swine, and volume of trade of pigs, pork, and pork products; Buffer Zone (Pink) which includes cities/municipalities of the National Capital Region and those which are adjacent to the infected zones, as well as ASF-free localities in an infected province; and Protected Zone (Light Green) which includes regions/provinces with no ASF cases but are contiguous with the yellow zone in terms of landmass.
The zone classification status is regularly reviewed and updated depending on the epidemiological changes of the disease. Ella Dionisio/DMS
