“In the long run, we are all dead!” — John Maynard Keynes
The Senate, sitting as a Committee of the Whole, passed a resolution urging President Rodrigo Duterte to withdraw Executive Order (EO) 128. EO 128 increased the minimum access volume (MAV) in-quota allocation of imported pork and reduced its tariffs for one year as a temporary measure to address the severe pork supply shortfall. Among the reasons cited by the 15 senators who signed the resolution is that such a move will lead to the demise of our local hog industry and result in billions of forgone tax revenues for the government. It also emphatically claimed that the Department of Agriculture did not make a convincing argument that the total pork supply deficit resulting from the outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) is 388,799 metric tons (MT) this year, thus necessitating the increase in MAV in-quota allocation.
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