The Philippines' garments manufacturers and exporters are now looking at exporting medical-grade personal protective equipment (PPE) to other countries as the government supposedly continued to show preference for foreign-made products.

"Nakakatawa 'no, tayo magsusupply sa labas tapos 'yong sariling atin hindi natin ma-supply (It's funny, that we are supplying other countries when we cannot even supply for our own people)," Senator Nancy Binay said in dismay after garments exporters disclosed the plan on Wednesday, April 28.

During the hearing of the Senate economic affairs committee, Coalition of Philippine Manufacturers of PPE (CPMP) Executive Director Rosette Carrillo reiterated the group's lament last year about the lack of demand from the government.

"The way the government purchases PPE, it is subject to certain standards, rules for purchasing, so we were subjected to the lowest cost, and unfortunately, at the same time, the Philippine market was flooded with very low-cost PPEs from China, some of them are even substandard," Carrillo told the senators.

This was despite them heeding the government's plea for the repurposing of their sector to respond to the pandemic, with companies supposedly investing US$35 million to convert portions of their factories for manufacturing medical-grade PPEs.

"We're very competitive for the pricing, in fact in the results of the bids, we are very close but we couldn't really compete when they start really diving the prices below industry rates," the CPMP representative said.

Marites Agoncillo, executive director of the Confederation of Wearable Exporters of the Philippines (CONWEP), said that due to the intermittent orders from the government, companies are now mulling to return to the export market so their repurposed factories could continue operating, and thus hire more workers.

"Basically they're semi-closed, and we only open it up when we get orders. If you don't have the orders, especially for the cover-alls, the gowns, then we're looking at the export market at the moment, we are trying to get in the export market," Agoncillo said.

Agoncillo said the government "could have saved 3,500 jobs" from the at least 25,000 workers retrenched last December, had it preferred and continued to order locally-manufactured PPEs.

Sen. Imee Marcos, committee chairman, cited a report and said that "a very cursory review of all the winning bids will show that the same few companies continue to win them every bidding round."

According to the senator, while the procurements were cheaper, the winning bidders allegedly offered non-medical grade" PPEs, as opposed to those locally-made that have passed international standards.

"We have seen the products, it seemed to be substandard within the context of international testing standards," Carrillo confirmed.

Marcos further said that of the goverment's latest procurement worth P4.8 billion, local PPE manufacturers only got 14 percent of total bid, while 86 percent of the amount "went overseas."

Binay surmised that a cartel may be responsible for manipulating government biddings and "trying to get all these contracts" to the detriment of local PPE manufacturers.

Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III, who chairs the Senate trade committee, vowed to look into the issue in a separate hearing.

"We'll get to the bottom of this. I think it's unfair to ask -- although it would save jobs -- ask factories to repurpose, and yet, the same time, disappoint them by not buying their output, their produce," he said.

"In a time of pandemic, our resources, I'm sure foreign reserves ang ginamit, are used to pay other manufacturers, other workers. Medyo hindi masyadong consistent (This is not quite consistent to our efforts), in a time of a pandemic," he added.

In 2020, agencies denied favoring imports from China and assured their support for local manufacturers of PPEs.

Under the "Bayanihan to Recover as One Act or Bayanihan 2", the government is mandated to prioritize Filipino manufacturers and suppliers in its procurement of PPEs, face masks and other protective gears for the country's health care workers and frontliners.