Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto today said the next government should consider Cebu’s shipbuilding industry as the main source of new naval ships to be procured under the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Modernization Program.

The province of Cebu, according to Recto, can also help the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) develop “affordable but cutting edge technology” for building patrol boats of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG).

“If we are also looking for boats that will be used by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) for their research and conservation programs, these can also be built in Cebu,” Recto said.

“We have a world-class shipbuilding industry in Cebu, but our government agencies have yet to harness its potential as a major source of military and civilian boats,” said Recto, who is one of the authors of the AFP Modernization ACT (RA 10349) and the principal sponsor of the Domestic Shipping Act (RA 9295).

Recto said the government has a deficit of floating vessels which Cebu and other areas where shipbuilders operate, like Navotas and Bataan, can help wipe out.

“For example, we need a hospital ship or two. Kahit maliit lang. You know we are an archipelago. And when there’s a typhoon, and the roads are destroyed, the only way to reach the victims is by sea,” he said.

“If we’re buying boats either for naval defense or for coastal or river patrol, then let our shipyards in Cebu make them,” he said. “If other nations find them exceptional, then we should too.”

Recto noted that the Philippines has been recognized as the fourth largest shipbuilder in the world, having shipyards with facilities that produce container ships, passenger ships, and ferries.

In particular, Cebu hosts shipbuilding companies which have been churning out vessels of world-class quality.

Recto said that by buying local, government will be supporting local firms, creating local jobs and giving manufacturing – which it trumpets must be resurrected – a much-needed boost.

“Buy local, create jobs. This should be the new mantra of the DND, DOTC and other government agencies for their procurement programs,” the senator added.

“What we can manufacture here, we don’t have to import from abroad. One good example are the car plates. A small piece of tin we chose to source from the Netherlands. Yet here we are building megaton ships,” he said.

Recto described government as a huge 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.”

For 2016, national government alone will be buying P73.5 billion worth of supplies and materials, not only for many “common-use” items for offices but also medicine for hospitals and parts for its vehicle fleet.

To the extent allowed by law, government must prefer local products or those with high local content in shopping for these, Recto said.

But in buying locally-made, “price points should not be the sole consideration,” Recto said. “We should not be buying a lemon just because it is wrapped in a Philippine flag. Quality should not be sacrificed.”

Recto said a provision in previous national budgets–which has been scrapped in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for 2016–provides the guidelines in government purchases of Philippine-made products.

“It’s a great mystery on why this provision, which was present in budget laws signed by presidents from Ferdinand Marcos to Benigno Aquino III, has been deleted in this year’s budget,” Recto said.

Recto said if Cebu will be allowed to build patrol boats, then the first line of defense against foreign incursion will be there.

Recto said the Philippines will be losing P200 million a day in fisheries receipts, and a major source of the country’s protein supply, if China’s newly-redrawn map, whose boundaries now closely hug the country’s coast will not be repudiated by world law and opinion.