Over P29 million indemnification fund was released by the Department of Agriculture – Regional Field Office I to compensate the losses incurred by around 885 ASF-affected hog raisers for the culling of 5,811 swine by the DA due to the dreaded African Swine Fever affecting hogs in the Ilocos Region particularly in the provinces of Pangasinan and La Union on the later part of 2019.

Being done on first and second phases of distribution, the first round was held in the municipalities of Mapandan, Bayambang, Dagupan City, Binmaley, Pangasinan with a total of P7 million in response to the losses incurred by the 327 ASF-affected hog raisers for their 1,400 animals indemnified.

On the second phase of distribution of the indemnification fund, DA has turned-over P22.235 million to 558 ASF-affected hog raisers from the 33 barangays of the 11 municipalities in the province of Pangasinan and one city in the province of La Union.

From among the 11 municipalities in the province of Pangasinan, the municipality of Mangaldan shared the biggest slice of the indemnification fund with around P8.87 million covering the losses of 222 ASF-affected hog raisers whose animals were culled due to the dreaded swine disease.

The ASF Task Force in the Region has requested around 51.035 million to indemnify the losses of the affected hog raisers in the region. To date, the Task Force is still waiting for the P28.8 million fund request from the Bureau of Animal Industry for validation of the reported cases is still on-going.