The coronavirus pandemic has killed nearly all economic activities starting in mid-March this year and taken the jobs of millions of Filipino workers. It shut down restaurants, malls, offices, several factories and small enterprises that rely on retail sales.
COVID-19 also restricted public transportation and grounded many construction and housing projects vital to economic development. Baby steps taken to reopen the economy, however, have fanned hopes of restoring jobs and livelihoods that bore the brunt of the pandemic.
Filipino workers are slowly trooping back to their jobs and work stations. Factories, offices, retail outlets and franchised stores are welcoming back their workers. Slowly but surely, the economy is starting to hum again.
But restoring the jobs lost during the pandemic will not be an easy task, especially if local workers are being displaced by unwarranted imports. The local cement industry, for one, is experiencing an unfair trade practice—imported cement is being passed off as domestically manufactured good.
The Cement Manufacturers Association of the Philippines (CeMAP) has brought to the attention of the Department of Trade and Industry a case of mislabelling imported cement as locally-produced product. It wants the government to launch a more thorough investigation on the origin of a cement brand, which the group said was being marketed as a legitimate Philippine product.
CeMAP has sought the assistance of the government early this year to verify if cement products Union V Super and Union V Ultra are indeed manufactured in the Philippines as indicated by the labels on the company’s cement bags. Union V Super and Union V Ultra are brands of Philcement Corp., a unit of the Phinma Group of Companies.
CeMAP has noted that the packaging of a 40-kg bag of Philcement’s “Union V Super Strength 40” cement bought in a store in Pampanga indicates it is a product of the Philippines.
It is common knowledge in the industry that Philcement is a heavy importer and buys cement from Vietnam. The imported product is then distributed throughout the country either in bulk or in bags. CeMAP, thus, raised a valid question: “Was this product actually manufactured in the Philippines?”
No PS (Philippine Standard) is printed on the bag while the Batch Identification Number and Manufacturing Date are not clear, which could constitute non-compliance with the department’s DAO 17-06 series of 2017.
The DTI says Philcement’s Bataan bagging facility has secured a PS license consistent with the provisions of DAO 17-06. A DTI official explained that based on the guidelines, when the manufacturer is accredited by the Bureau of Product Standards, it can label their product as made in the Philippines. In short, if the product is imported and has the PS license, the item can then be labeled as locally made. This is queer.
Labeling imported cement as a local product is a serious trade issue in the light of the government’s efforts to jumpstart the economy through the intensified infrastructure program and the “buy-local” campaign.
Cement is a critical component of an infrastructure project. The industry directly employs 42,000 workers and creates 125,000 additional jobs throughout the value chain.
The cement manufacturing industry contributed an estimated P155 billion, or close to 1 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, in 2016 alone. It is expected to directly or indirectly employ 400,000 workers in 2030. It also pays about P24 billion in corporate and individual income taxes to the government.
Allowing imported cement to be labeled as locally-produced through mislabeling would severely threaten the viability of the local cement manufacturing industry, already weakened by the pandemic.
“CeMAP strongly advocates the provision of accurate information to the public to facilitate sound choice and the proper exercise of consumer rights. To enable faster economic recovery, the government is promoting use of locally manufactured products to preserve jobs and make the most of the multiplier effect and contribution of domestic manufacturing activities to the Philippine economy. It is therefore imperative that products sold in the market, like cement, are appropriately labeled and represented as such,” says CeMAP.
The Department of Trade and Industry, meanwhile, should immediately impose remedial measures to correct the harm being inflicted by mislabeled imported cement on local producers. Local workers in the cement sector have suffered enough. They need a break.
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