Gov’t urged to implement law on local fabrics use

Philippine exporters are pushing for a law on tropical fabrics that has not been implemented for more than a decade now, saying it could help revive the country’s textile industry.

This was expressed by an official of the the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport), who cited the lack of political will behind the implementation of the Philippine Tropical Fabrics Law.

Also known as Republic Act 9242, the 2004 law required the government to use Philippine tropical fabrics—such as from abaca and pineapple—for the uniforms of government officials and employees.

“It had no impact, no continuity. For some reason, they killed it immediately. It was implemented but it was suddenly gone,” Robert Young, Philexport trustee for textile, yarn and fabric sector, said in a phone interview on Saturday.

The implementation of the law, he said, was only a baby step toward reviving the local textile industry, which is currently dominated by imports.

In a separate statement, he said the law’s implementation would translate to more than 1.3 million metric tons of extracted tropical fabric, excluding cotton.

Tropical fabrics, he explained, are harvested from plants, which are then mixed with cotton in order to manufacturer textiles. These textiles are used to make garments.

A number of factors had played a part in the demise of the local textile industry, which is linked also to the fall of the local garment industry.

These factors included the removal of quotas in textile and clothing trade, which scrapped the import quota allocated for these Philippine products since 1995.

Young, who is also president of the Foreign Buyers Association of the Philippines (Fobap), recalled that the export of garments reached its peak during the early 1980s.

However, textile imports later became tax-free, he said, which kept companies from using local textiles instead.

“Eventually, this was abused by selling around 30 to 40 percent of the textiles to the local market, coupled with the rampant smuggling by independent importers. And so the end of the textile era,” he added.