THERE must be some deep reason and complicated economic logic for Executive Order 285 "directing the rationalization of the operations of the Garment and Textile Export Board (GTEB"). That’s doublespeak for abolishing the agency tasked under EOs 537, 823, and 952 "to negotiate, conclude, and implement garments and textile agreements, bilateral or multilateral, between the Philippines and other countries."
Surely, the abolition of GTEB must have been thoroughly studied by GMA, since at one time, as DTI under-secretary, she was in charge of the agency.
She knows that the agency is funded directly from dues and fees collected from the garments industry and that it has already established a foothold in the international market in terms of yearly earnings of $2.8 billion (
R150 billion).
Under what pressure, then, is the GTEB being abolished?
Certainly not from the General Agreement on Trade and Tariff (GATT)-World Trade Organization (WTO), nor, as far as it’s known, from local institutions. And if it’s the idea of the Department of Trade and Industry, the rationale is shrouded in history. Austerity can’t be the reason since the GTEB is not funded by government.
But there’s no mystery about the dependence of 200,000 weavers/workers, contractors, traders, and dealers of the garments industry on the GTEB to represent their interests in the world market. The abolition of the agency in the next two months can very well bury the garments sector.
What galls the industry is that its members were not even consulted about the abolition at a time when they are facing stiff competition abroad. They need the GTEB as a negotiator for export quotas the same way the garments industry of other nations need theirs. If this is not crippling, if not killing, private enterprise in a government that prides itself on being "business-friendly," then what is?
It boggles the mind that an administration dedicated to promoting private enterprise is actually doing the opposite. It’s tough enough for producers and traders to thrive under an uneasy economic environment, it’s simply murderous to "de-activate" an agency that promotes an industry that contributes billions to GNP.
