PhilFIDA turns 4!
Date Posted July 2017
The Philippine Fiber Industry Development Authority (PhilFIDA) marked its 4th anniversary in a simple celebration on 9 June 2017 at the 4th floor of DA-PCAF building, Department of Agriculture compound in Quezon City.
Leading the celebration was its new Executive Director Kennedy “Ted” T. Costales who, in his anniversary message, said that “the agency will focus not just on abaca. We have started in terms of developing sisal, silk and cotton. We will create new industries. We will engage with all types of natural fibers, we will increase fiber production to help idle farmers.”
As the new Chief, his directives for the agency and his plans and programs for the industry were presented. Executive Director Costales proposed to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) a huge budget of P3.2 billion next year for the development of the abaca industry as it shifts to abaca tuxy buying instead of the conventional way of handling the abaca fibers. The proposed budget will be used for planting activities to meet the demand of about 90,000 MT for abaca fibers.
“At present, there are 12 steps to process abaca for it to become sellable. We want to reduce this to six. The hardest process is stripping and the lengthiest is sun drying. We target to skip those parts so farmers can just focus on tuxying and their cooperatives can buy abaca at that stage,” Kennedy Costales explained.
The 12 steps of traditional abaca fiber production are topping, tumbling, tuxying, striping, sun drying, sorting, hanking, bundling, carrying, storing, transporting and trading. Under the abaca tuxy buying project, the new administration wants to cut it short to six steps which will only include topping, tumbling, tuxying, tuxy bundling, tuxy transporting, and tuxy trading.
Executive Director Costales said the new process will allow farmers to produce all the abaca tuxies they want for the day before selling it to the cooperative the same day. It is projected that through the reduced production process, individual abaca farmers can sell around 100 kilos to a maximum of 250 kilos of abaca tuxies to their cooperative at least once or twice a week.
It may be recalled that the PhilFIDA was created through Executive Order No. 366 on 29 May 2013. This resulted in the dissolution of the Fiber Industry Development Authority (FIDA) and the Cotton Development Administration (CODA).
The festivity also included giving of loyalty service awards to employees who reached 40, 35, 30, 25, 20 & 15 years in the government and awards to winners in the bowling tournament and in the group dance contest.
