Members of the House Committee on Trade and Commerce on Monday called for additional funding support to local companies producing personal protective equipment (PPEs) to enable the industry to meet the country’s needs for protective health gears in the face of a continuing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Deputy Speaker and Valenzuela Rep. Wes Gatchalian noted that local manufacturing companies cannot compete with China-brand PPEs which are cheaper, causing local makers of PPEs to lose in the bidding.

Some House lawmakers, particularly the Makabayan bloc, have earlier called for an investigation into the alleged preference of the government in acquiring imported over locally-manufactured PPEs, which are mostly from China.

Gatchalian also noted these local manufacturing companies are not included under the proposed Bayanihan 3 or the economic stimulus package, which the House Committees on Economic Affairs and Social Services have approved today.

“We really need to support them with funding, because it’s true they can’t compete with China. That’s a given. The cost of materials is down, the labor is down, electricity is cheap in China. So the best or the only way to go is through a subsidy or some sort of funding for our manufacturers of PPEs for what we need in the meantime,” Gatchalian said during the hearing of the House panel on the state of the domestic medical-grade PPEs manufacturing sector.

AAMBIS-OWA Partylist Rep. Sharon Garin agreed saying that while local manufacturers are included in the Bayanihan 2 and its provisions have been extended, the funds to help local PPE manufacturers “are not enough.”

“Pero kulang yun (The funds are not enough). They need more,” Garin acknowledged.

Deputy Speaker and Cagayan De Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, meanwhile, moved that House Bill No. 7165, or the proposed Pandemic Protection Act of 2020” which seeks to provide funds to make the local manufacturing for healthcare industry responsive and competitive.

Rodriguez said it should be the House Committee on Trade and Commerce that should be tackling the measure. The measure was referred to the Committee on Defeat COVID-19 Ad Hoc Committee since July 29, 2020.

Rodriguez said the bill already includes incentives for PPE manufacturers. “It’s important that we re-file this bill and refer this bill to the trade and commerce,” he told the House panel.

The bill recognizes how the Philippines, at the onset of the pandemic, totally lacked its own manufacturing facilities for PPEs, their raw materials and testing facilities, contributing to the deaths of health workers and other frontliners.

The lawmaker noted this has prompted the Department of Trade and Industry –Board of Investments (DTI-BOI) to encourage existing manufacturing firms to repurpose their operations.

“However, after going through the rigid process of complying the registration for their manufacturing facility and products to conform to international standards, (they) find themselves competing with substandard imported products, fake and counterfeit imported PPEs, and preference to imported over local PPEs,” Rodriguez stated in the bill.