New hope for PH coconut agro-industry

We were Earth’s top coconut-producing nation once. But government neglect has severely diminished this Philippine agro-industry. Its trees average only 43 nuts per year: Neither the Department of Agriculture nor the Philippine Coconut Authority bothers to improve cultivation. And while 25 million Filipinos depend on

coconut livelihoods, farmers earn only P6,000 per year from copra drying, failing to optimize bountiful raw materials into high-value finished

products.

In recent years, virgin coco oil and buko juice sparked interest in a Philippine coconut revival, pushing coconut exports past $1 billion in the last two years. But the Philippines should be exporting $10 billion or more annually, with additional products like nata de coco, macapuno, cocosugar, cococoir, cocoflour, cocosoy, cocovinegar and so many other coconut derivatives. These include items like the long-forsaken and oft-forgotten  lambanog, a traditional coconut-based Filipino liquor from the Tagalog region that spawned tequila manufacture in Mexico, thanks to the Galleon Trade between Manila and Acapulco.

Today, tequila has obtained a separate liquor classification, while  lambanog  languishes between being forsaken and forgotten to being downgraded and maligned as gin bulag and other pejorative names, such that an invitation to a  lambanog  tagayan  is not just turned down but rebuffed by shaking heads. This traditional, true Filipino spirit has fallen on the worst of times.

Anthony C. Manguiat and Lawrence G. Lim of Philippine Craft Distillers Inc. (PCDI), a start-up assisted by BalikProbinsiya, hope to turn things around with the coming launch of Lakan extra premium  lambanog. PCDI’s modern distillation technology transforms tuba  into a totally natural coconut alcoholic beverage of 90-proof potency and incredible smoothness. PCDI has substantially improved the incomes of  karitan  operators-suppliers and now offers the whole world this new liquor to savor and enjoy.

Working with Coconut House and the Philippine Coconut Society, PCDI plans to develop and market more top-quality manufactures from the “tree of life”—to revitalize the diminished and forsaken Philippine coconut industry. Watch out for Lakan: It will make you feel good to be a Filipino once again!

—JOSE Z. OSIAS,

convenor, BalikProbinsiya

jzosias@gmail.com