AVANT GARDENER

Here is part two of my series on PTRI’s (Philippine Textile Research Institute) Bamboo Fiber Textile Innovation Hubs, continuing from December 19, 2025.

In the previous column, PTRI director Dr. Julius L. Leaño, Jr. discussed PTRI’s bamboo fiber program and why textile is important to national identity. Now, we begin with the current applications of bamboo fiber.

PTRI started with wearables, blending bamboo with other fibers like cotton and silk, then expanding to home textiles like draperies, linen, and upholstery, the latter not being very particular about textile fineness. “Bamboo can only go so fine, as the size of the yarn,” Leaño explained, adding that this makes it suitable for home textile applications. “There’s a big market for this. They say that the home market is bigger than all of the wearable markets put together, so the Philippines wants to position itself where our output can really see value.”

PTRI is also trying to find use for bamboo species that aren’t being used for major economic purposes, such as climbing bamboo, which cannot be used for furniture and construction.

They are also trying to promote bamboo for non-wovens, where turning the fiber into yarn isn’t necessary. This includes footwear, filters, and backings. “Bamboo has a very good sound impedance property, so it’s good for theater walls, so we are looking at the industrial application of bamboo as well,” Leaño said.

PTRI considers three major factors when choosing a location for a Bamboo Fiber Textile Innovation Hub. “Are there raw materials there? It cannot be located in a place where there’s bamboo but then you cannot access the bamboo,” Leaño said. “Corollary to that are logistical considerations. For example, farm to market road, is there a way to get it down, do we have power lines running through them because the machines are still powered by three-phase power, for example.”

The other half of this equation are willing community partners. “We have farmer groups; do we have cooperatives? We have seed colleges and universities around; do we have LGUs that are interested?”

PTRI pairs each hub with the partners who operate it, so that the hubs are not redundant to each other. “They are different models, actually, because as a research institute, we still look at them from a model [and] technology transfer perspective,” Leaño said. “It has to be near a certain textile activity. What do I mean? Either the nearby community has to have a weaving culture or there’s a spinning facility within a certain radius. A spinning facility is the one that makes the yarn. So we try to put them together.

For example, we have one spinning facility to be inaugurated in Kabacan, North Cotabato. So cotton will come from Sarangani, bamboo will come from Agusan, or maybe even Bukidnon, and they will converge to that facility. The range is wide, but the bottom line is they are actually computed based on their capacity to support a facility.

“Similarly, there’s a spinning facility in Ilagan, Isabela, and we have a bamboo hub in Kawayan, Isabela. It’s complimentary. We have a lot of spinning facilities in Region One but we have bamboo hubs in Naguilian, Lingayen, [and] Abra. They will be giving us different types of bamboo fibers because they have different types of bamboo.”

He added that, “We are trying to balance the amount of bamboo output from these different hubs to the spinning facility so that we do not overproduce it.”

Women have been benefitting the most from the textile hubs. “It wasn’t on purpose… We saw that it was the women who were most interested because they were the ones left at home,”Leaño said. “When you go to the ground,your technology is validated, not by the money they earn but because of the possibilities that are opened to them. You can see it in the eyes of mothers who know that they are earning money, that they can add to the household income. It’s a very rewarding feeling.”

It doesn’t end there. “PTRI is here to push the boundary and find strategic and competitive advantages of our industry,” Leaño said. “ My own philosophy, and I think it’s shared by the Institute, is that the strength of the supply chain is not in the industries alone, it’s in the farmers and in the products that we have on the ground.

“We’ll continue to develop the ecosystems in the different regions, as far as Tawi Tawi [and] Dinagat Islands because they, too, have a piece in this whole discussion, and women are central to that. [It’s] women who continuously keep the culture alive, women who pass on cultures of weaving, and women right now who are taking up a lot of space in innovation.”