MANILA, Philippines—A group of local manufacturers, who heeded a government request to repurpose their facilities, is now capable of making tens of millions of personal protective equipment (PPE) in a year but the Duterte administration had bought only a portion of that supply, forcing the group to lay off workers.
The Confederation of Philippine Manufacturers of PPE (CPMP) is made up of five manufacturers with decades of experience in electronics and garment manufacturing. They had been asked by the Department of Trade and Industry in March 2020 to repurpose their facilities to make medical grade PPEs, a move which cost the companies an initial investment of $35 million.
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