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MANILA, Philippines - As Filipinos begin shopping for Christmas gifts, an activist lawmaker urged them to buy local products to help “spur the local economy and provide much needed income to local producers, especially the micro, small and medium enterprises.”
“Let’s not forget our fellow Filipinos who manufacture local products. If we will buy gifts, let’s buy their produce,” said Bayan Muna party-list Representative Teddy Casino, chairman of the House committee on small business and entrepreneurship development, as he noted that it is usually during the Christmas season when imported products - from fruit to clothes to Christmas lights - are dumped in the local market.
He also urged overseas Filipino workers coming home for the holidays to do away with huge boxes of imported goods and purchase local items instead.
“True balikbayan are those who patronize Filipino products,” he said at a recent forum where he was joined by Federation of Philippine Industries president Jess Aranza and National Economic Protectionism Association president Bayan de la Cruz, who are also members of the Buy Pinoy, Build Pinoy movement.
He said buying local would boost the MSME sector’s 750,000 firms, which account for 99.6% of total establishments and contributing 61.2% of total employment. Most MSMEs produce consumer goods, mostly food and retail services.
Casino has filed House Bill 5573 declaring November as the Buy Pinoy, Build Pinoy Month.
"We set November as the Buy Pinoy, Build Pinoy Month so as to give due time to our local producers to prepare their goods and so that the campaign would be on our shoppers’ minds when they do their Christmas shopping,” he said.
The bill mandates all heads of government offices and instrumentalities, including government-owned and -controlled corporations, as well as local government units and private employers sector to "encourage and afford sufficient resources, time and opportunities for MSMEs to engage and participate in any and all activities to mark the month."
Activities for the month will include MSME trade fairs, bazaars, marketing missions, information dissemination activities, education and advocacy campaigns, and similar events featuring Filipino products, manufactures, inventions, technologies and resources and shall be conducted in all national government agencies as well as cities and municipalities in the country.
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