Philippines Confirms Participation in APHIS Phytosanitary

UNCLAS MANILA 002260 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR EAP/MTS STATE PASS USTR FOR DKATZ USDA FOR APHIS JLEMLY, LALFALLA, MFLEMING, RCAPLEN E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON ETRD EAGR PREL ASEAN RP SUBJECT: Philippines Confirms Participation in APHIS Phytosanitary Program REF: STATE 90811 ¶1. On July 3, EconOff presented reftel demarche and talking points to Segfredo Serrano, Undersecretary for Policy and Planning at the Department of Agriculture. Serrano confirmed the attendance of Joel Rudinas, Director of the Bureau of Plant Industry, and Larry Lacson, Chief of Plant Quarantine, at the APHIS phytosanitary workshop in Ho Chi Minh City. He said that the Philippines does not have regulations governing irradiation for phytosanitary quarantine purposes, but that the participants will bring to the workshop a Department of Health regulation on the irradiation of food. ¶2. Serrano said that there are no private or government irradiation facilities in the Philippines. The Department of Agriculture has one ongoing project, funded by USDA, at the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute that focuses upon the effects of irradiation on mangoes. The project uses Cobalt 60 equipment. ¶3. Serrano also stated that the GRP would be open to signing a generic Framework Equivalency Working Plan, but that at the workshop it will raise several concerns about provisions in the reftel nonpaper. In particular, he noted that the Bureau of Plant Industry's testing indicates that a generic dose of 400 grays of ionizing energy destroys mangoes, and proposes that the standard dose be 300 grays. Kenney