This is a re-posted opinion piece.
I was totally amused at how DTI Secretary Greg Domingo got excited about this buko juice craze in America like it is something new. “One of the important meetings P-Noy had in the US was on coconut water,” Domingo was quoted saying in a news story, “which is quite exciting.”
Is Greg Domingo for real? Is the Palace running out of stories? I was shaking my head in disbelief as Malacañang made a big thing about a $15 million investment in the coconut industry by an American buko juice seller. Where have you been hiding all these years, Mr Domingo?
I wrote a column way back Sept. 6, 2009 entitled “Buko Juice: the next big thing!” The column was about an interview I came across on Bloomberg of an entrepreneur who discovered buko juice as the next big thing for the health conscious young people of America. If Mr. Domingo is interested, I can send him my file copy of that column. It will make him feel guilty he didn’t give this attention earlier.
The first paragraph reads: There it is, the humble coconut water all set to be the next big thing in the world of beverages and we are not even in the picture. Yet, we should be. We are a coconut country and the coconut tree once upon a time provided our biggest dollar earner. Now it turns out our entrepreneurs, big and small and our do nothing government bureaucrats whose job it is to nurture the coconut industry all failed to see this great opportunity estimated to potentially be a $45 billion market.
Actually, when I visited California last June, I wrote “A visit to an Oriental supermarket is highly recommended for our DTI Secretary. It shows how we are falling behind our neighbors on products we traditionally make at home… like patis and bagoong, now both produced by the Thais and I think, even the Vietnamese. The Thais are also selling canned buko juice (I bought a couple of cans out of curiosity) and one wonders what high technology they have and we don’t that enables them to do that.”
I am concerned Mr. Domingo seems not extremely worried that our food manufacturing industry has already lost out to the Thais and maybe the Vietnamese. We are not talking of high tech industries here but such low tech stuff like manufacturing patis and putting buko juice in cans or tetra packs.
The Thais are even sticking their dirty fingers in our faces by using brand names like Sarap. It was obviously meant to mislead long time Pinoy residents of America to think the product is Pinoy made.
Even that popular Knorr Sinigang Mix is being imitated by the Thais under the Sarap brand. How can we lose competitiveness in making Sinigang Mix? That’s a question I want DTI Sec. Domingo to answer. It can’t simply be due to our high power rates alone.
It is too bad many manufacturing enterprises in this country from textiles, garments and steel (even the beauty parlor mills) are all gone or barely alive. You should hear textile and garments pioneer Johnny Litton tell you the story of why those industries failed. Government corruption is a big reason. I can almost hear Frankie Sionil Jose say, kita mo na, kita mo na!
And multinationals like Colgate and Intel moved their manufacturing from here to Thailand and Vietnam. But losing out on traditional food manufacturing drives home the message that we are failures. Even Oishi, the highly successful Chinoy food manufacturer with a couple of dozen plants in China and Southeast Asia is exporting to the Middle East from Vietnam and China.
If Sec. Domingo was present during the 85th birthday dinner of taipan John Gokongwei, he would have heard him mourn the death of Philippine manufacturing and that should have made him wonder about what he should be doing as DTI chief. This is what Mr. John said:
“The Philippines still lack an industrial base that can help us move towards the direction of Tiger economies such as Taiwan, Korea and China. We probably followed some faulty political and economic models in the past but we need to seriously rethink where we want the Philippines to go and implement measure to achieve this. I, personally, will probably not be a beneficiary of this, but I worry for my grandchildren, for your grandchildren and their future in this country. I have always believed that an industrial base is necessary for a country like ours to grow.”
“In our little way at JG Summit, I believe we have contributed to this, by setting up manufacturing plants specifically for our food business, Universal Robina Corporation, and training our employees in manufacturing operations, to produce world-class food products. We have demonstrated through URC’s success in countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, that Philippine companies can compete in manufacturing and brand building.
“We are also investing $700 million to build a world-class Naptha Cracker plant, which will be operational by 2014. This is part of my hope and dream that local companies can invest here and help the country build an industrial base. Now is an opportune time. Manufacturing is moving around Asian countries, depending on cost inputs such as labor, and the Philippines can compete.”
As for buko juice, I heard from my Binondo sources that a guy named Tony Tiu had been working on bringing Vita Coco to the Philippines for over a year now. I understand there will be groundbreaking ceremonies in CamSur for the tetra pack plant tomorrow. I also heard there is a bigger operation in Cagayan de Oro.
But I am still holding my breath something good will happen with this buko juice “revelation” dawning on Sec. Domingo. In fact, what needs to happen now is a good program to resuscitate the coconut industry. We need a massive tree planting initiative, and it isn’t as if there is no money to do that.
It is unfortunate that the money of the coconut industry had been misused all these years. I guess there is still a substantial amount invested in San Miguel preferred shares and if they need resources to carry out a program for the industry, this can be used.
Secretary Domingo should work with Agri Secretary Proceso Alcala not just to boost this budding buko juice export business but to modernize our coconut industry as a whole. So many farmers in the coconut growing provinces are in dire poverty and can really use a lot of help. Alcala, who comes from Quezon, should know what must be done for the coconut farmers.
I am really hoping the urge to support the coconut industry will survive the current excitement over buko juice. But in this headline driven government of ours, one can only doubt. Puro pa pogi lang!
Murderous men
During the Senate floor deliberations on the RH bill, Sen. Serge Osmeña stood up to ask questions from bill sponsor Sen. Miriam Santiago. Sen. Serge wanted to know if the moment of conception is defined because he doesn’t want any interference once conception has happened. Before the sperm meets and unites with the egg, as far as Sen. Serge is concerned, it is ok but not after because that would be murder.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile stood up to say that they should go further and say that any attempt to kill the sperm even if it has not reached the egg is also murder.
To that, Sen. Miriam retorted that all you men must be murderers because she said, every time you men jack off, you kill all those sperms.
What can I say? I really like Sen. Miriam, my UP Collegian editor. I am opposed to her going to the ICC because she is the only one that makes me smile when I watch the Senate at work. Then again, it would be great to see her handle the Gadaffi case when it comes up at The Hague.
By the way, I understand that a group of high school students were watching at the public gallery while this RH debate was going on. They got a good sex education from the senators, something their parents and their teachers should have been doing for them.
Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. He is also on Twitter @boochanco
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By: Boo Chanco – Demand and Supply
Source: The Philippine Star, Sept. 28, 2011
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