Domestic manufacturers Friday criticized the policy direction of Trade and Industry Secretary Gregory L. Domingo to allow uncompetitive local industries to die their natural death and allow conditional release on imported items that have not yet passed product testing as part of the agency’s effort to cut bureaucratic red tape.

In a speech before the General Membership Meeting of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), Domingo said the DTI is reviewing procedures by which to improve business environment and one aspect they were looking at to relax product standards requirements.

In the same event, Domingo said that he favors the grant of full government support to selected industries that grow and compete and manage the decline of the uncompetitive to be able to manage effectively the limited government resources.

On the standards issue, Domingo has toyed with the idea of granting provisional release of imported products while undergoing product testing. Imported products are subject to Import Clearance Certificate (ICC). If an item does not pass the required standards, it cannot be issued an ICC and without the ICC mark it cannot be sold in the local market.

Domingo further said they are looking at allowing a “green lane” for products that have shown discipline and for that they could be “exempted from the ICC” requirements. If these imports slide back, they can be brought back to non-green lane.

This has irked the FPI, which has been involved in the crafting of the mandatory standards on some 80 products.

“We worked so hard so that this ICC will undergo very strict printing process because before it was being printed by the importers themselves,” Arranza said.

The ICC is meant to protect the safety of consumers, Arranza said.

“It is quite absurd that the Secretary of Trade, in whose department the BPS (Bureau of Product Standards) is an organic agency, will advocate for quick release and conditional release of the ICC.

He should have studied that a lot of those products that were released on conditional release before were sold even prior to examinations, so the harm has been done already even before the government could even determine if they are substandard items,” Arranza said.

There has been an unabated influx of substandard products ranging from food to construction materials, like ceramic tiles and steel bars.

This prompted the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) and the Philippine Product Safety and Quality Foundation (PPSQF) to work for the setting up of standards because under WTO, protection of environment, health and safety of people are allowed since it is not to be considered as a non-tariff barrier.

As these put high risks to the consumers, the FPI, the industries, and the PPSQF work with the BPS in crafting all these rules on mandatory testing and ICC.

And these were not just set up based on the whims and caprices of the people in the industry, Arranza said.

“This is not to deter trade but to protect the safety of the consumer, which is one of the main functions of the DTI under the Consumer Welfare Act,” Arranza said.

Arranza was concerned that Domingo would just throw away all these, all the hard work of the industry, especially now that the Filipino people are starting to discern the highest class of standards.

In the meantime, Arranza has appealed to Domingo to hold on to it until the domestic industries were given the chance to air their side when they meet on July 28.