Bohol enlists communities in

ASF prevention drive policies

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol (PIA)—Empowering rural communities in the spreading fight against the African Swine Fever (ASF) that has dented on the local industry, Bohol is now establishing a system to let communities spear-head the fight.

Faced with the shortage of manpower with the technical know-how in disease control and management, Bohol through Governor Erico Aristotle Aumentado issued Executive Order No 06, series of 2025.

This established the rules and regulations in implementing Provincial Ordinance No 2025-015 of the Revised Bohol ASF Prevention Ordinance.

Crafted to prescribe the procedures and guidelines in implementing the provincial ordinance, ease up its compliance and achieve its targets, EO 6 intends to safeguard Bohol and its P5 billion hog industry against ASF.

This is through prevention of the entry of diseased animals, regulating and making proactive inspection and monitoring of meat transport, processing facilities, and adopting measures to prevent the introduction and spread of the disease within Bohol.

Critical to the move institutionalization of the Bohol ASF Prevention and Control from which the City, Municipal and Barangay ASF Prevention and Control Program can be based.

And the move also creates the Provincial Executive Committee on the ASF, which is tasked to review and approve, provide policy directions of the Preparedness and Contingency Plan, identify resources for the plan implementation and the creation of yet another multi-sectoral, multi-agency technical working groups to look on to and facilitate contingency plans and its operations.

And then finally, the order also calls for the creation of component Task Forces: Quarantine, Field Monitoring and Surveillance, Port Surveillance and Monitoring, Quick Response Task Force, Information, Education Communication and Advocacy, the City and Municipal Task Force and the Barangay ASF Task Force.

This is a very critical move, confesses Provincial Veterinarian Dr. Meydallyn Paman, adding that “the OPV does not have all the available manpower to deploy in cases of disease surveillance and monitoring.”

The order also enlists business sector, the shipping and airlines as well as courier services to help in the information, deny loading prohibited products, examine transport documents and participation in disinfection in their sanitation activities.

After the initial cases, we have trained community responders to man their operations, and with the OPV supervising the operations, it has worked, she added.

The EO also details guidelines and protocols in the movement of live hogs, boar, semen, pork and pork products to Bohol, protocols on the operation of veterinary quarantine services, animal inspection and issuance of veterinary health certificates prior to shipping permits.

As the EO details the tasks for every barangay team, it frees OPV personnel from getting trapped for weeks in an area, as anybody coming out of the quarantine area can become a possible source of contamination, jumping out of the quarantine area, notes OPV veterinarian Dr. Domino Bayron.

It also has quarantine regulations for incoming and outgoing cargo vehicles, livestock vans and meat transport vessels, intra provincial quarantine regulations, ASF zooming, swine depopulation and hog movement restrictions, indemnification and penalties as well as administrative proceedings. (PIABohol)

NOT AS HARD NOW. With towns and barangay authorities now slowly getting familiar with the implemented ASF prevention protocols like how to set-up and sustain border security like what San Miguel (above) did, the Office of the Provincial Veterinarian authorities now have saturated the drive to key barangay authorities so they can manage their programmed activities relative to ASF control. (PIABohol)