Posted on 26 Nov 2019
The House of Representatives will be playing a pro-active role in preventing the loss of lives during calamities as Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano vowed to spearhead an inquiry into persistent reports about the use of substandard steel bars on high-rise buildings.
“We cannot compromise public safety following deaths and destruction because of a series of earthquakes in Mindanao. The House will look into steel smuggling in the country and make accountable those who are behind this illegal activity,” Cayetano said.
“Congress will work on measures to address steel smuggling because we cannot just sit down and wait for a big disaster to hit us,” the Taguig congressman told reporters in a chance interview, when asked about the sale of quenched tempered steel bars.
In effect, he welcomed the initiative of an opposition lawmaker for an inquiry into rampant reports of continuous smuggling and proliferation of substandard steel products.
Another lawmaker called on the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to ban such materials from the market.
“We hope that the DTI will be more stringent by coming up with measures to ban these steel products, instead of just putting out the list of stores (selling these substandard products),” Agusan del Norte Rep. Lawrence Fortun said in a recent radio interview.
The legislator filed at the House last month Resolution 379, which aims to dig deeper into rampant reports of unabated smuggling of substandard steel products resulting from the collusion between large steelmakers and public officials as well as in aid of legislation.
Fortun wanted to find out reports that Bureau of Customs and DTI officials have allegedly conspired with local steelmakers in producting substandard steel bars, which, he suspects, are being used in high-rise condominiums, now under threat due to recent earthquakes.
He urged the DTI under Secretary Ramon Lopez to ban the sale of substandard steel products that were found in various hardware stores to ensure the integrity of buildings and homes in the country, especially during earthquakes.
The neophyte opposition legislator noted as well that these substandard steel products were manufactured by firms using induction furnaces that have already been banned in China.
“These induction furnaces have been banned in China but we are still using it here in the Philippines. This process in making steel products is very pollutive. It destroys the environment. On top of that, the steel that it produces is not of good quality,” Fortun said.
He noted that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Iron and Steel Council (AISC) has urged all ASEAN countries to ban the importation of induction furnaces and yet these obsolete machines are still being brought and used by local steel manufacturers.
“Our main concern is that the ASEAN is becoming a dumping ground for these obsolete and outdated machinery and equipment,” the AISC said in a statement presented during the ASEAN Senior Economic Officials Meeting in Singapore last year.
“In summary, the moving of the induction furnace facilities from China into the ASEAN could result in the bringing in of an obsolete technology that is not suitable for carbon steel production. These induction furnaces produce substandard quality steel products and are environment unfriendly as they emit uncontrolled harmful gases and particulates, and consume higher electrical energy than electric arc furnace,” the AISC concluded.
