Ready-to-eat food rations of the United States military are sold online via a shopping website, GMA News' 24 Oras newscast reported on Tuesday.
The Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE) packs were spotted on Monday by GMA News in a mall at Makati and were being sold despite the US Department of Defense rations' label warning against the commercial sale of these items.
The public was first alerted to their sale through Facebook photos of the meals. The rations, according to the photo caption, were left by US troops and sold by a general, and was not part of Typhoon Yolanda relief goods.
When Jerry Carual, President of the Search and Rescue Unit
Foundation Inc, tried to purchase them on Tuesday, he was the store had no
stocks of the MREs and never sold any.
Continuing his search, Carual found another dealer from Pampanga through an online site, selling the US military-issued rations for P3,500.
When GMA News contacted the person who posted the ad to buy some of the goods, the response was that stocks were not available and cannot be sold partly because the MREs are current hot topic in the news media. The seller also declined to disclosed the source of their MREs, saying that it was classified information.
MREs are the food rations of US soldiers and may last for several days, making them optimal for disaster aid. Prohibition of their sale is printed on their packaging.
Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala, spokesperson of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said the MREs could not have come from the Philippines' and the US' joint military exercises.
"It's wrong to say na ito ay galing sa Balikatan Exercises at iniwan nila at ibinigay sa atin. The right people to probably look into this, would be the Department of Trade and Industry or the U.S. government," said Zagala.
The US Embassy has yet to reply to queries about the MREs.
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