MANILA, Philippines?Turkish flour is not toxic and therefore ?fit for human consumption.?

Turkish Ambassador to the Philippines Adnan Basaga made this assurance on Friday as he stressed the exportation of any toxic or contaminated materials from Turkey to the Philippines ?will never happen.?

?My government will stop any attempt to export such materials to your country,? said Basaga.

In a hastily arranged news conference at his Forbes Park residence in Makati, Basaga described as ?unfounded? claims that flour imported from his country was contaminated and potentially toxic.

The envoy also pointed out that the Turkish government ?has never allowed toxic or contaminated food items to be fed to its people.?

?The same principle applies to all products coming from Turkey,? Basaga emphasized.

Two presidential candidates?Nacionalista Party standard-bearer Manny Villar and former President Joseph Estrada?took the Arroyo administration to task for ?sleeping on the job? and for allowing the importation of ?cheap yet reportedly harmful? food ingredients.

Threat to public health

In a statement, Villar asked Malacañang to quickly order an investigation into the threat to public health posed by the continued use of Turkish flour by local manufacturers.

?The Department of Health (DOH) seems to have been caught flat-footed by the recent revelation that cheap Turkish flour used in various kinds of bread and noodles could be actually carcinogenic,? Villar said.

Villar called on the health department to take decisive steps against the further use of contaminated Turkish flour in local bread and noodles.

Estrada said the importation of the damaging flour and sugar wouldn?t have happened had the administration not allowed their entry into the Philippine market.

?I was also President?. I was quite careful in dealing with such matters,? Estrada said of the executive branch?s role in preventing harmful ingredients from entering the country.

He said those behind the importation of Turkish flour and magic sugar only think about making a quick profit.

?They couldn?t care less about the poor. Their only concern is to make a profit,? Estrada said.

Nothing to worry about

But Berki Tuna Atala, third secretary and deputy head of the Turkish mission here, said Filipinos have ?nothing to worry about.?

?We have a special certification from our government that it is safe flour. It is definitely healthy flour,? said Atala.

In a joint statement, Gunhan Ulusoy, member of the board of the Turkish Flour Industrialists Federation, and Ernesto Chua Ko Kiong, president of the Malabon Longlife Trading Corp., said there was ?no concrete evidence? that Turkish wheat flour contains carcinogenic mycotoxins called Ochratoxin A before all the shipments arrive in the Philippines.?

?The issue was just based on an article (in the Journal of Food and Drug Analysis) that is clearly speculative,? they said.

They claimed ?the wheat samples used for the research were limited and only from one region (Thrace) in Turkey, representing just 10 percent of Turkey?s total grain production. Therefore, it was inconclusive.?

?All wheat being (exported) by Turkey are being tested for Ochratoxin A by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. The last 800 shipments of what had undergone Ochratoxin A testing and all tested negative,? they said.

Eaten by a billion

They also noted that ?not only 72 million Turkish consume Turkish wheat but also 1.1 billion people from 126 countries eat food made from Turkish flour.?

Turkey is the ninth largest producer of wheat and the second largest exporter of wheat flour worldwide.

Last year, the Philippines imported 57 percent of its total wheat flour supply from Turkey, paving the way for consumers to avail of good quality wheat flour. This maintained the prices of pan de sal and other bread products affordable to Filipinos, the embassy said.