Consumer group warns against inflow of contaminated cement

MANILA, Philippines – Around 150,000 bags of seawater-contaminated cement entered the Philippine market, said a consumer group.

The National Consumer Affairs Council (NCAC) chairman Jose Paredes Pepito said the contaminated cement entered stores after a ship carrying cement from Vietnam encountered a leak that caused 6,000 metric tons of cement to get wet.

Pepito said the 6,000 tons of cement, equivalent to 150,000 40-kilogram bags, are no longer compliant to Philippine safety standards.

The repackaged cement may be difficult to distinguish from regular cement sold in hardware stores.
NCAC said the imported cement is part of a 25,000-metric ton shipment of Halong brand cement which was unloaded in La Union last March.

“Besides, re-bagged cement should not be sold unless first tested by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). Unfortunately, the DTI does not know the location of the 150,000 bags at this point. In the meantime, the public should be very careful when choosing the cement products that they buy in the local market,” Pepito said.

Contaminated cement is considered substandard and dangerous if used for construction.

“Having been contaminated by seawater, the physical and the chemical properties of this cement will not comply with the required standards of cement that is safe to use in construction projects. The re-bagging procedure involves shoveling the cement from the warehouse floor which has particles that will degrade product quality and can result in a concrete mix that can easily crumble,” the NCAC official explained.