It is still a month before President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) is scheduled to deliver his penultimate State of the Nation Address (SONA). This year’s traditional delivery of the SONA is slated on July 27 to ceremonially mark the joint opening of the second regular session of the Senate and the House of Representatives of the 20th Congress.
Newly elected Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian and Isabela Rep. Faustino “Bojie” Dy as House Speaker will be seated behind PBBM on SONA day at the Batasan Pambansa in Quezon City. That is, if the fractious senators have settled already their leadership issues with finality.
At our Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum last Wednesday, Filipino business leaders sounded their clarion call to the President to include in his SONA their pleas to ban the importation and use of induction furnace in the manufacture of construction-grade steel. The renewed call to stop the use of induction furnace came to the fore following the latest collapse of residences, buildings, roads, bridges and other structures during the magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Mindanao last June 8.
Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) chairman emeritus Jesus Arranza and Ronald Magsajo, chairman of South East Asia Iron and Steel Industries (SEAISI) and president of the ASEAN Iron and Steel Council (AISC), underscored the urgency of banning the induction furnaces which produce low quality steel and iron bars. Both of them were in agreement in saying earthquakes do not kill but it is man’s deadly greed.
Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) director Teresito Bacolcol shared their concern and expressed his support for advocating the ban on substandard steel and iron bars in the construction business, saying that the country lies in the Pacific Ring of Fire that is prone to earthquakes. Bacolcol described the Pacific Ring of Fire as the tectonic belt that wraps around the Pacific Ocean. It is said to be earth’s most active geological zone, housing roughly 75 percent of the world’s volcanoes and generating about 90 percent of all global earthquakes.
“The magnitude 7.8 June 8 earthquake, generated by the Cotabato Trench, was one of the strongest earthquakes to affect the country in recent years,” Bacolcol cited. “While earthquakes cannot yet be predicted, their impact can be reduced through science, preparedness and resilient infrastructure,” the Phivolcs chief pointed out. Bacolcol urged both private and public authorities to strictly adhere to the enforcement of the Building Code and product standards, especially on construction materials, in order to reduce, if not totally avoid, fatal disasters and tragic loss of lives.
Hours after we discussed the recent Mindanao tremors, back-to-back earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 shook Venezuela Wednesday night. As of press time yesterday, 32 people were reported killed and retrieved from collapsed buildings in its capital city of Caracas. And yesterday, another powerful earthquake with magnitude 7.2 occurred in Japan. No tsunami alert was raised and no casualties or major damage were reported.
Bacolcol warned the Mindanao earthquake reminds us of the importance of preparing for other earthquake scenarios, including a possible magnitude 7.2 earthquake along the West Valley Fault, or “the Big One” as it is more popularly called. “Metro Manila faces unique challenges, including some vulnerable infrastructure which probably need to be retrofitted or rehabilitated, high population density, limited open spaces and the need for greater public preparedness and awareness,” the Phivolcs chief stressed.
Speaking for the steelmakers in the Philippines, Magsajo echoed the fears of non-earthquake grade steel and iron bars produced from induction furnaces that were banned by China in 2017 but found its way here in our country and our neighbors in the ASEAN region. According to Magsajo, the use of induction furnace facilities was found to produce impurities in the quality of steel and iron bars, aside from the environmental concerns on its poisonous wastes.
Magsajo deplored an estimated 120 to 150 million tons of induction furnace steel capacity and mothballed equipment that were shut down in China were reportedly sold and are still being used by unscrupulous steel and iron bar makers in the Philippines.
“This is all the more critical here in our country. Filipino lives are at stake. We should not wait for another tragedy to occur before taking decisive action. Ban the use of induction furnace and strictly implement and enforce the new standards for reinforced steel,” Magsajo asserted.
Magsajo urged the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in particular to immediately implement new steel standards and ban the use of induction furnace to promote infrastructure and building safety, what with the country prone to earthquakes. He rued the new standards on steel safety have been approved last May but have not been enforced.
The new standards developed by the DTI Bureau of Philippine Standards are aligned with the National Structural Code of the Philippines and international seismic design requirements. These new standards also eliminate the use of steel products that do not meet seismic performance requirements. “Unfortunately, the updated standard is yet to be mandated nor is there any indication of the target date for implementation,” he lamented.
For his part, Arranza sternly called the attention of the DTI and other concerned government agencies in addressing such life-saving and immediate solutions to better protect Filipinos with seismic-resistant construction materials. “It must be the whole of government, we urge the President to ban these induction furnaces,” Arranza declared.
Arranza fondly recalled the SONA on July 22, 2024 when PBBM officially banned all Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs). “If the President banned the POGOs, the sale of substandard steel and iron bars produced by these induction furnaces must be stopped also, when lives of Filipinos are at stake,” Arranza urged.
Arranza vowed to personally ask PBBM to ban induction furnaces in yet another “Dear Mr. President” letter.
In behalf of the FPI, Arranza counted he had sent to Malacañang Palace as many as 14 “Dear Mr. President” letters. Most of which, he claimed, were replied and acted upon by PBBM.