The purchase of billions of pesos of PPEs, face shields and masks from China – when better quality locally-produced ones were available at a far lower price – underscores the need to restore the “Buy Filipino” provision in the national budget, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said.

Recto said the provision, present in the general appropriations laws proposed and signed by presidents from Marcos to Aquino III, disappeared in the 2014 national budget.

Before its scrapping, the Buy Filipino provision mandates government to prioritize the procurement of Philippine-made products.

Recto said the Buy Filipino provision should be put back in the national budget to help struggling domestic manufacturers keep operating and meet payroll during the pandemic.

Recto said if the Buy Filipino provision was part of the 2020 national budget, “foreign carpetbaggers” would not have been able to corner government’s bulk procurement of face shields, PPEs and masks last year. “It would have provided some deterrence.”

In the wake of the “calamitous domination by a fly-by-night, undercapitalized, zero track record foreign-owned company in a big PS-DBM-DOH contract”, “a united Senate” should reinstate the Buy Philippine-Made provision in the 2022 national budget, Recto said.

But pandemic or not, there is a “vibrant domestic manufacturing industry” that can supply the government’s annual shopping list of supplies and equipment, Recto said.

“Wala pang COVID, meron nang ganung batas noon. Eh di mas lalo na ngayon na kailangan ng mga naghihingalong lokal na kumpanya ng benta upang manatili silang bukas at hindi magsisante ng mga manggagawa,” Recto said.

The kind of aid local companies would prefer is that government buy from them instead of giving them bailouts, he said.

“Para sa maraming kumpanya, benta ang mainam na bakuna laban sa pagsasara kaysa kakarampot na ayuda. “

He described the government as a big supplies and equipment buyer, with a budget in the hundreds of billions annually. “From soap to cars, from paper to guns, government buys these in bulk.”

When the Buy Filipino provision made its last appearance in the 2013 General Appropriations Act, it stated that “priority shall be given to the purchase of locally-produced and manufactured materials to be undertaken either by administration or by contract.”

Covered by the rule were “foreign-assisted projects whose covering loan agreements expressly allow or do not prohibit the same.”

If the quality of the locally-produced and manufactured material is sub-standard compared with its imported counterpart, then importation was also allowed, Recto added.

The third exception was “if no locally-produced and manufactured material is available as certified by the Department of Trade and Industry,” Recto said.

“As you can see, it was a balanced rule. While preference was stipulated, it was not a blanket mandate to buy pricey local lemons simply because they’re made by Filipinos,“ he said.