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BY: EUNICE SHEENE FULGENCIO
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ILOILO City – With its contribution to the country’s gross domestic product, a solon is pushing for the support for the bamboo industry.
AAMBIS-Owa Party-list representative Sharon Garin authored the Philippine Bamboo Industry Development Act of 2016 also known as House Bill 3357. The bill aims to “promote the rapid, steady, and continuous integrated development and the growth of the Philippine bamboo industry.”
“We have to fully support bamboo farmers, producers, processors, and exporters with concrete policy actions and incentives to sustain the bamboo enterprises that they have started or to entice investors to go into the bamboo industry,” Garin said in a statement.
Garin, an Ilongga, furthermore noted that the bill aims “to formulate a framework for development which will encompass site identification, scientific propagation and development, production support, and quality assurance for health and proper trading, among others.”
In Iloilo, Maasin is the bamboo capital of the province, with the town’s 3,000 hectares devoted to bamboo farming.
Western Visayas Agriculture and Resources Research and Development Consortium’s 2014 data showed that the town is supplying raw materials to 41 manufacturers, 32 domestic producers, and nine exporters.
The bamboo industry has been helping locals earn income, as the demand and support for bamboo products increase for the past years.
The Philippine Statistics Authority reported that in August 2016, woodcrafts and furniture exports which include bamboo products amounted to $254 million.
The Philippines is the fifth top bamboo exporter in the world next only to China, Europe, Indonesia, and Vietnam./PN
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