Amid rising prices of basic commodities, President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered a price cap on pork and chicken meats for the next 60 days in the Metro Manila.

Duterte signed Executive Order 124 following the request of the Department of Agriculture (DA).

Under the order, there will be a price cap on the following items: P270 per kilo for kasim and pigue, P300 per kilo for liempo, and P160 per kilo for chicken meat.

Agriculture Secretary William Dar blamed wholesalers and hoarders for the rising prices of goods as well as the threat of the African Swine Fever outbreak.

Dar said that some retailers went beyond the farm gate prices to earn more profit in these products.

The government has ordered the unhampered transport of hogs from Visayas and Mindanao.

Last week, the DA detected the first case of African Swine Fever (ASF) in the town of Dulag in Leyte on Friday.

The Regional Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (RADDL) conducted tests in a barangay in Dulag and later on confirmed that ASF caused the unusual death of 1 swine there.

The ASF case was further confirmed following results of the PCR diagnostic test conducted by the Bureau of Animal Industry in Manila.

The town is about 43.8 km. away from Abuyog, Leyte, where the region’s first ASF case was confirmed on Jan. 14 and five days later, detected in its nearby towns of Javier and La Paz.

As of Jan. 27, at least 1,600 pigs have been culled in affected towns to contain the spread of the disease.