Here is the last installment of my three-part series on PTRI’s (Philippine Textile Research Institute) Bamboo Fiber Textile Innovation Hubs, continuing from Jan. 9, 2026.

In the previous column, PTRI director Dr. Julius L. Leaño, Jr. discussed the current applications of bamboo fiber. Now we talk about PTRI’s Bamboo Fiber Textile Innovation Hubs around the country. There were six bamboo hubs at the time of the interview, the last two having just opened, all of them running on different models. “It’s either they differ in species, they differ in the host, they differ in the model, but as much as possible, there aren’t any duplications so we could evaluate the appropriate technology transfer method or modality for bamboo fiber,” Leaño explained. “We’re trying to locate it strategically, not necessarily equally across the Philippines.”

They are in:

1) Naguilian, La Union. “This was given directly to the community and they are the ones operating it,” Leaño said in Taglish. The center uses local kawayan tinik and bayog, an endemic species that grows plentifully in the Ilocos region. “They’ve reached a point where they’ve been able to use their profits to buy new computers in their school and medicine for their community.”

2) Kawayan, Isabela. Located in Isabela State University, all the hub’s output is to be made into spinnable fibers.

3) Maragondon, Cavite. Located in Terra Verde Ecofarm Inc. (TVEI), an integrated eco-farm focused on natural farming and agritourism, the hub is “used for training and to demonstrate the utilization of the different bamboo species in their bamboo centrum… If we want exotic bamboo, we ask Maragondon because they have an inventory of different kinds of bamboo.”

4) Lagangilang, Abra. Abra is the bamboo capital of the Philippines. Located in the University of Abra, the hub “uses a different species from the one in Isabela…. Finer bamboo fibers may come from Abra.”

5) Lingayen, Pangasinan. “The one in [Pangasinan State University (PSU)] is being used as an innovation facility for students to take a look at the machines, how the process may be improved, and how they link to the academic community,” Leaño said. “PSU gave the building, we gave the machines and the rolling out of the technology. It has a capacity of producing about 40 kilos of treated fibers per day.

“Students will come and go, either to operate it, evaluate the process, [and] use it as an academic laboratory, on top of it being a production facility. This means while they are producing the fibers from the different communities, there are students looking at it from the lens of research.”

And since Pangasinan already has a bamboo industry, the hub can complement this by turning what would have been waste from that industry into bamboo fiber.

6) Buenavista, Agusan del Norte. The hub is managed by a partner community of Indigenous Peoples (IP) in tandem with the local government. “The only input that we had there was technology. The machines and the building were provided by the local government for the community,” Leaño said. “It provides an alternative to the lower value applications that they normally know for bamboo. It [also] introduces them to the use of these machines. These machines are not sophisticated…. They were actually developed in the Philippines… They could see how these simple tools can actually help them facilitate their work, and then they focus on the higher value part of the work. The third one is entrepreneurial capability… They produce their own fibers, or they can also work as a team.”

It doesn’t stop there. “There will come a point where we won’t need so much bamboo textile, so… banana trunks may also be extracted for fiber. Those are the things that open up for the community. I think they are very much confident because the ancestral domain is really planted with bananas and bamboo.”

The hubs also aim to increase the economic opportunities for farmers.“This is the undervalued part of the supply chain [because] we always try to rely on imported fiber. This is where we try to link with the farmers because this is where the tangency of the supply chain comes with the farming communities. If you don’t get the fibers from the communities, it isn’t relevant to farmers, and maybe their wives as well. That’s why we want to make sure that [the hubs are] sourced with what is planted locally.”

Despite 127 years as a nation, the Philippines still has much to learn about itself. “I’m not a fan of static cultures. There’s no such thing,” Leaño said. “The culture of sharing and caring is actually what the national identity is all about and I think textile encapsulates all of those things.”