By Manny Piñol
The Philippine Rubber Industry which for over a hundred years now has largely stood alone with little help from government, received a needed boost Monday with the completion and launching of the Rubber Industry Roadmap, a joint project of the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department of Agriculture and the stakeholders, including small rubber farmers.
DTI Secretary Ramon Lopez and I, representing the Agriculture Department, signed a Joint Declaration witnessed by the rubber businessmen and farmers’ representatives in a simple ceremony in the BOI Building in Makati City on Monday.
The Rubber Industry Road Map is a product of years of consultations which were started long before I became Secretary of Agriculture.
With very little understanding on the importance of the industry not only to the Philippine Economy but also poverty alleviation in the countryside and reforestation, the effort by the stakeholders hardly received any meaningful support from government in the past.
The Rubber Tree is a jungle tree found in the jungles of the Amazon in South America.
The native Indians called it “Cauchoc” or the “Crying Tree” because when the bark is wounded, a white sap called rubber latex flows out of the wounded.
Rubber first caught the attention of Europeans who travelled to South America who saw the native Indians play with round balls which bounced. It was also used in their footwear.
When they finally understood the uses of the rubber latex, a British businessman brought seeds of the tree to the Kew Gardens in London and from there the tree found its way to the Malayan Peninsula and to the Southern Philippines over 100 years ago.
The rubber latex is used in making car, truck and airplane tires, shoes and sandals, including condom.
The price of rubber produced in the Philippines, however, has largely been dependent on the world market and unlike in Malaysia where they have developed a strong rubber manufacturing industry which gives their farmers better income, the Philippines only produces raw rubber which is either exported to Malaysia or sold to Yokohama Tires, the only tire manufacturing company thus far in the country.
The Rubber Tree is not only an agro-industrial crop. It is also ideal for the tree farming program of the country, especially in areas which have been logged over. Since the rubber tree could produce latex for up to 30 years, farmers protect their trees for long periods thus ensuring that there are trees in the mountainous areas of the country to prevent soil erosion and landslides.
With the completion and launching of the Road Map, the Philippine Rubber Industry could now expect to get the needed financial and technical support from the national government.
Programs which would promote the planting of rubber and marketing and processing support could now be drafted and included in the national budget of the government.
The ultimate objective of the Rubber Industry Stakeholders is to see the development of the local rubber manufacturing sector, like the establishment of a Filipino-owned car and truck tire factory, to ensure that their products will no longer rely on the international market prices.
(Photos of the Road Map launching were taken by Gian Carlo Luage, DA AFID while the photos showing my son Imman with my rubber tree in the farm and my brother, Pat, and his prolific rubber tree in his farm, were downloaded from my previous posts.)
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