NEW YORK—Call it a case of “if at first you don’t succeed….”

The Save Our Industries Act is slated to be refiled in the current 112th Congress, after it was snubbed in the last legislative session. The bill proposing to allow the Philippines to import American textiles and export apparel back to the US under a duty-free arrangement did not get past the committee level of either chamber.

“It was not even deliberated upon,” revealed Board of Investments Vice Chairman Cristino Panlilio, who was in New York and spoke to reporters on May 19 to drum up publicity for the bill. What he would like to see is for the nearly 5 million Filipino-Americans—a “potent force”—to phone their senators and congressmen and urge them to support the bill.

He said some big names in the US fashion-and-garments industries are already rallying behind the legislation, among them, Ann Taylor, Liz Claiborne, Ralph Lauren and Natori, which is owned by Fil-Am Josie Natori. He added that boxing legend Manny Pacquiao has agreed to do a promotional road show.

The bill, according to him, would revive the Philippines’ outmoded apparel industry, which in its heyday provided jobs to 600,000 Filipinos and accounted for export receipts of about $3 billion.

The ailing industry could not quite recover because there is no more textile production to speak of. With two or three mills remaining in the Philippines, according to Panlilio, the country needs to import textiles to sustain the industry. As a result, the industry shed up to two-thirds of jobs and is sputtering at $1-billion receipts. All that’s remained of a large miller called Universal Textile Mills Inc., more known as Utex, are nostalgic memories of its popular basketball team.

Compared with China, which controls 42 percent of the apparel market in the US, the Philippines’ share is only 1 percent. This was pointed out by Rick Helfenbein, president (US) of Luen Thai Holdings Ltd., an international apparel distributor that is supporting the SAVE Act bill.

Helfenbein cited history in arguing for the bill’s passage. He said the last time the US and the Philippines had a wide-ranging preferential trade agreement was in 1955, when the Laurel-Langley Act paved the way for Americans to invest in Manila in support of the young republic that was then trying to nationalize its industries.

“The time has come,” he said. “This [bill] is an excellent vehicle.”

More than history

But it’s not as simple as recalling a shared history and the oft-touted Philippine-American friendship to keep the legislation in motion. There are other Asian countries—among them, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam and Pakistan—that are also competing for their share of the US apparel market currently dominated by China. And like China, they have their own textile-manufacturing industries; the Philippines does not.

Panlilio conceded, “It’s very competitive.”

The bill is still undergoing refinements but it’s scheduled to be refiled any day now by Sen. Daniel Inouye and Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington.

A draft of the bill shows which types of textiles would be subject to duty-free treatment. They include fabrics dyed and finished in the US that can be embroidered, stone-washed and screen-printed in the Philippines; women’s and girls’ cotton coats; infants’ wear; and cotton and man-made fiber dresses and skirts.

The quality of Filipino craftsmanship in sewing, embroidery and pattern-making is among the best in the world, said Robert Mele, vice president for international trade at Ann Taylor. His company has “one large facility” in the Philippines employing hundreds of people, who produce suits, dresses and blouses under Ann Taylor’s many labels.

“The Philippines is a key supplier of Ann Taylor products,” he said.

There are many hurdles to this bill, and the China special-interest group is just one of them.

One opposition will likely come from American textile mills that have relocated to China or Mexico and which could lose market share to Philippine-based mills, although the bill’s backers are predicting 10-percent to 12-percent lower production costs than China if they transferred to the Philippines.

There are also some cotton merchants who have extensive business arrangements with Chinese mills, who would be leery of seeing market share go down at a time when world business conditions are tough. Many of these mills and trading houses are based in the US cotton belt states, from Virginia in the east through Texas and all the way out California. Texas, the biggest cotton-growing state, accounts for nearly half of all US cotton acreage estimated by the government at 12.5 million acres.

The fact that the SAVE Act bill did not even make it out of committee indicates how strong the opponents are.

(This article is reprinted with permission from The FilAm, a magazine for Filipinos in New York. You can also read this article at www.thefilam.net.)