Level playing field for cement industry

Why is Ernesto Ordoñez, a regular columnist in your paper, defending his business interest as a cement manufacturer in his Aug. 31, 2017, column? Isn’t this rather unethical on his part?

Why is he protecting his vested interest in the pages of the Inquirer when he should be more concerned with educating his readers on how to make agriculture serve our economic development?

As president of the Cement Manufacturers Association of the Philippines, Ordoñez should not resort to raising a bogeyman on substandard cement allegedly being smuggled into the country. He should come up with verifiable and actionable information on the scope and magnitude of smuggling of both high-quality grade and substandard cement into the country, if any.

Actually, cement is one of the commodities that is tariff- and duty-free according to the Asean Free Trade Agreement, since much of the cement we import comes from Vietnam, an Asean member-state. So why would importers smuggle cement into the country if it’s already tariff- and duty-free?

I also cannot understand why Ordoñez is not in favor of preshipment testing of cement as this is one of the proposals of cement importers to prevent smuggling and the entry of substandard and defective cement in our ports.

Why not allow both preshipment testing, as well as testing of imported cement upon arrival, so that there would be absolutely no doubt that the cement we get is of the highest quality? This should cover all importers — pure importers as well as cement manufacturers-importers, without exception, so there’s a level playing field.

Or is he and his group of cement manufacturers opposed to all cement imports as they would have a monopoly of the supply and dictate the prices of the construction material now that the Duterte administration is poised to spend P9 trillion in infrastructure projects until 2022?

Ordoñez’s misplaced cement piece boggles the mind and reeks of self-interest peddling.

DARIA STA. MARIA, daria.stamaria@gmail.com