Davao City councilor Mary Joselle Villafuerte, chair of the Committee on Health (Paulo C. Rizal/davaotoday.com file photo)
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — A total of 14 villages in this city are experiencing a “severe infestation” of flies, a city councilor said on Wednesday.
Davao City Councilor Mary Joselle Villafuerte, who spoke at the City Council’s session, said the City Health Office, noted an increase of house flies population in nine barangays of Calinan district and five barangays in Tugbok district.
Villafuerte, citing a report from the CHO’s sanitary department, attributed the severe infestation of house flies to the 30 poultry farms and three piggeries.
“We have been accustomed to the increase of fly population but meeting with barangay officials during the holidays made me realize this was not an isolated problem anymore,” she said.
While she visited Calinan and Tugbok, Villafuerte said that score of house flies could be seen inside the restaurants, around the shopping and parking areas, and crawling on sidewalks.
Apart from the identified infested areas, Villafuerte added that the 33 poultry and piggery farms lack mitigating measures to control the population of house flies.
Villafuerte, a medical doctor by profession, warned that it could pose a risk to the health of the people which may lead to cause diarrhea, skin and eye infections, among others.
The sanitary department of CHO and Department of Health are planning to conduct a consultative meeting to all poultry and piggery farm owners on January 16.
“We hope in this meeting, we can remind the business owners of their responsibility of their community as we are aware, a business should take care the mitigation of pest infestation in their work area and to the community,” Villafuerte said.
In a segment of “Pulong-Pulong ni Pulong,” Councilor Al Ryan Alejandre, the committee head for international relation and tourism, expressed hoped that the committee for health handled by Villafuerte would take appropriate action as the city will host three big events this month.
The three main events for this month will be the visit of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe in Davao, the 50th Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit where Davao City, and a quick visit of the Miss Universe 2017 candidates before their coronation night on January 30, 2017.
Japan’s prime minister, Alejandre said, is slated to visit Barangay Mintal dubbed as “Little Tokyo” which is only minutes away from Calinan district.
“Based from the roots, some Japanese before occupy Barangay Mintal in fact they already made a master plan for their tourism sponsored Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority before the whole Davao City did,” he said.
Alejandre said he is confident that Villafuerte will be able to solve the problem before the ASEAN 2017 ceremonial event on Sunday, January 15 to be held in this city.
“It’s is not easy to organize big events, since we have to see all aspects like roads, security, and many more,” he said. (davaotoday.com)
