Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Volume 3, Number 34 September 28 - October 4, 2003 Quezon City, Philippines |
Bulacan’s
Salt Farms Melt Down For
decades Bulacan, a province north of Manila, used to be one of the
Philippines’ biggest producers of salt. But when the General Agreement of
Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was ratified by the Senate in 1994, many salt farms
started closing one after the other as cheap salt imports flooded the market.
Worse, hundreds of families dependent on the salt industry lost their sole
source of income. By
Dabet Castañeda
Big
demand for salt As
a prime commodity, salt has a great demand.
Aside from being used for food, it is a vital component of industrial
products such as steel, fabric, paper and even bullets.
It is also a main ingredient in manufacturing Filipino foods such as
dried fish, fish sauce and shrimp paste. UNICEF
consultant Mr. Venkatesh Mannar says the estimated annual salt demand in the
country is 240,000 tons for human and animal consumption and another 120,000
tons for industry.
Signs
of profit A
frontier land for homesteaders until the early 1940s, the coastline of Bulacan
(which consists of parts of Obando, Bulacan, Malolos, Paombong and Hagonoy) was
since developed into fishponds by poor fisherfolk.
As
it is beside Manila Bay, it is accessible to salt water, the prime source of sea
salt.
Seeing the possibility of producing salt by solar evaporation from
seawater, the fisherfolk turned some fishponds (locally called "fish
pens") into salt farms and by the early 1950s, the salt business in the
province was fully matured.
Then quite profitable, the production caught the attention of a number of
landlords and lured them to invest in it. The
late Don Roman Santos, a landlord from Pampanga, saw signs of hefty profit in
salt production and was one of the first who made a big investment in the
province, particularly in Matalaba (Paombong), Matilakin and Propius (Bulacan).
He commissioned a number of fisherfolk in the area to build fishponds
convertible to salt farms during the summer.
(As salt is naturally produced from salt water and solar energy, its
production is seasonal.
Asinan or the areas where sea salt is produced are open for
production for only six months, from December to May of the next year.) As
the demand for the product peaked, the price of salt increased sharply as well
and indeed provided substantial income to salt producers. From PhP 0.30
(US$0.15) per cavan in the 1950s, the prices went up to PhP100 (US$ 1.81) per
cavan in the 1990s, depending on the supply. (Table 1 shows the increase of the
price of salt from the 1950s to the 1990s) Business
fears Chinese
investor Andres Tan, one of the biggest owners of salt farms in Bulacan,
inherited the family’s business when his father died in the mid-1980s.
He started to feel worried about the business in 1998 when the price of
local salt could not compete with the price of imported salt in the market.
He
put his lands in Namayan, Pulo-pulo and Masili on lease, demolished his salt
farm in Lintaw and in 2003, returned the salt farms in Borja, Sentral and
Palapat to their owners.
He has reportedly invested his money into some other businesses of the
family.
After
the Philippine Senate ratified the General Agreement on Tarrifs and Trade in
1994, the country started importing cheaper industrial salt from India and the
Middle East.
Sensing
danger, many salt laborers coordinated their protest actions against the entry
of imported salt in the Philippine market.
In 1996, they formed an organization called Asinan Bulacan.
However, as salt farmers and hired hands started to lose their jobs, the
organization folded up four years later.
Sopronio
Javier, former chair of Asinan Bulacan and himself a salt laborer, says that
after imported salt penetrated the Philippine market in 1994, its price dropped
as low as PhP40 (US$ 0.72) per cavan (40kl/cv).
This brought the price of locally produced salt down to PhP50 (US$ .90)
per cavan (54kl/cv).
Today, the price of local salt has sunk to its lowest at PhP35 (US$ 0.63)
per cavan to be able to compete with imported salt in the market.
Moreover,
Javier underscores the pivotal role of salt merchants in the market.
He says the buyers, mostly Chinese businessmen, purchase salt from salt
farmers at very low prices but sell this at rates almost ten times higher.
He says when sold to food companies or industries salt is priced at
PhP350 (US$ 6.36) to PhP400 (US$ 7.27) per cavan.
What’s
worse, Javier says, salt merchants have developed a mechanism, whereby
locally-produced sea salt is mixed with imported industrial salt and the mixture
classified as edible salt in the market.
This makes it more difficult for local edible salt to yield more income
in the market for its producers as mixed salt is priced even more cheaply.
(Table 2 shows the list of salt bed owners and the status of their production or
non-production as of September 2003.
A salt farm is considered demolished when it is closed for 5 years.)
While
salt producers have invested their funds to more sustainable and profitable
businesses, the salt farmers in Bulacan have lost their main source of income
and livelihood.
How
it was 60 years ago Villagers
still recall how the production of salt in the province started in the early
1940s.
Landowners tasked fisherfolk to cut the wood in the islands, divide the
land into salt beds, lay clay on them, and put up a storage room (kamalig)
for salt.
As part of the agreement, the landowners paid these salt laborers only
with food.
However, these laborers' hard pioneering work and dedication also earned
them a right to tend the salt farms.
In later years, as a result of their collective action these salt farmers
were already paid monthly allowances.
“Pinagbintangan
kaming
nagnanakaw ng isda mula sa palaisdaan” (We were accused of stealing
fish from the fishpond), says an upset Nana Etang.
She swears her family never engaged in such theft and adds the owners
wanted them out because they were suspected of supporting New People’s Army
guerrillas in the area.
But
the old lady refused to move an inch unless her family was given rightful
compensation.
“Kami ang nagpundar ng asinan, naglingkod kami ng mahigit dalawang
dekada tapos sisirain nila ang reputasyon naming dahil ayaw na nila sa amin?
Hindi talaga kami umalis
hanggat hindi nila binabayaran ang aming right sa asinan.
Karapatan namin yun” (We supplied the seed money for the salt farm,
served for more than two decades.
Now they besmirch our reputation because they are now against us.
We really did not leave until they paid for our right to the farm.
This is our right), she stresses.
Her
family was paid PhP550,000 (US$ 10,000)which in turn was used to buy another
section of a salt farm in Matalaba, also in Malolos.
However, the salt farm in Matalaba was closed in 2000 and has never
opened since because the producers say salt production has ceased to be
profitable. Salt
farms in the province employ some 600 families or roughly 6,000 individuals,
including salt farm helpers.
Last season (December 2002 – May 2003), the population dropped to
almost half. A total of 320 families have simply lost their livelihood.
The importation of salt may have provided profits to merchants and importers but for the salt workers, they did not lose just their jobs, they also lost decades of an entire way of life. Bulatlat.com Table
1
Table
2
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