Entry of substandard steels calls for enforcement of quality in the Philippine market
By Kate Cayamanda
Photo File From THEPHILBIZNEWS
With the proliferation of the substandard steels in the market in order to meet the demand of the booming construction in the country and the government project of BUILD, BUILD, BUILD, the Philippine Iron and Steel Institute urged the Department of Trade and Industry to closely monitor the sales of reinforcing steel bars in the country as many have found to be low the standard prescribed.
The group recently found out that several hardware stores in Southern Luzon are selling below quality rebars after a market monitoring operation within the region discovered it. The identified areas are Cavite, Laguna, Batangas and Occidental Mindoro.
“We also recommended to the Bureau of Product Standards (BPS) to conduct an immediate audit and issue show-cause orders to the manufacturers that produced and sold the substandard rebar,” said PISI President Roberto Cola in a statement.
“We are concerned that substandard rebars are being openly sold in the provinces of Mindoro, Batangas, Laguna, and Cavite. These steel products are used for the construction of homes in the provinces which are usually visited by typhoons, flashfloods, and sometimes earthquakes, and thus, they need to use quality construction materials. The proliferation of substandard steel in the provinces poses grave danger to families living in those provinces,” Cola said.
“While substandard rebars are unsafe to use, they are being sold without the knowledge of the buying public,” he said further.
A report from PISI states that the Pampanga-based induction furnace steelmaker Wan Chiong Steel has been selling most of the underweight rebars at six stores while other manufacturers who seemed to be violating the existing consumer protection laws for selling 8MM as 9MM rebars are Capasco, Phil Koktai Metal, Continental, Metrodragon, and Real Steel.
According to a radio report, the said substandard rebars were mostly produced in China and imported to the Philippines and then being sold in the domestic market without the knowledge of the buyers or users that these (substandard) steels do not meet the required specification based on the design and usage of the said materials being used in construction.
