Albay’s abaca, the crop and the industry, is an historical enterprise under siege. Mosaic and bunchy-top are wiping out the crop; an aggressive, cheaper mass producing technology-based fiber industry is taking over the world market by a blitz.
Mosaic and bunchy-top are terminal plant diseases. An afflicted plant has only one course to to—total destruction. In Albay not only one plant or an isolated plantation is suffering from the diseases but thousands of plants and hundreds of hectares of farms. Consequently, production is at an alarming slump. Albay, once a major producer, now looks towards Tigaon in Camarines Sur and Catanduanes for supply of fibers to keep its cottage industries going, its factories milling. Other provinces, notably Sorsogon, are not producing any more as in the past.
In the 1950’s the first commercially successful synthetic textile fiber, nylon, made its mark in the world market. Since then, polyester, acrylic, polyolefins, and a host of others followed not only in the textile fiber field but in industrial materials—ropes, twines, mats—products which once were made of abaca. In the 1970’s the synthetic fibers were not only becoming more attractive but were getting exceedingly tougher than natural fibers.
The novelty of synthetic fibers somehow caused abaca exports to fall away. As a result, the 1980’s had the local exporters either intelligently diversifying to other concerns or simply called it quits. The abaca world market became uncomfortably intractable.
These are very serious matters. Unfortunately, policy makers have yet to be truly alarmed or at least sincerely show the private industry practitioners that something is being done—that there is a serious effort to save abaca.
Planters are at a loss as to what to do with their plants dying out with bunchy-top or mosaic. Destroy and diversify? Or, wait for the winds to blow the aphids to the seas?
There is no remedy against mosaic and bunchy-top but total destruction. The destruction will lead to non-planting within a certain period to be sure that every aphid is starved dead. When it is over, abaca can be replanted. In three to five years thereafter there can be an abaca harvest once more.
One reason why the Americans rushed to Bikol when Spain surrendered at the dawning of the 20th century and even during World War II was to secure their abaca trading posts notably Smith, Bell and Co. and their plantations in Albay. When at last abaca supply from the Philippines was cut off during the war, America learned a lesson: Introduce and transplant abaca to other tropical countries such as Indonesia and Central America. Today, abaca production in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama and several other Central American countries provide a buffer for American needs.
Obviously, abaca is important. Which means that the aphids which disseminate mosaic and bunchy-top should not be believed to be smarter than our policy makers.
As world population continues to mushroom, agricultural spaces are diverted to other uses to meet man’s other necessities (shelter, recreation, etc.). The result: natural fiber production gets lesser premium than food production. Yet the demand for fibers have not concomitantly gone down with the lopped-off spaces for natural fiber production. In fact, this demand is even on the rise. With this demand goes the need for greater versatility in fiber materials. The demand and the need are now being answered by man-made fibers through a technology which has been abloom since the 1960’s. Naturally, the market space which natural fibers cannot fill, man-made fibers take. Unfair competition? The greatest competition is in the “bread-and-butter” area where man-made fibers such as polypropylene can be produced cheap and it provides the kind of textile that have long been produced from cotton. The threat against abaca will be in the ropes made of polypropylene fibers. This fiber can also be manufactured into what abaca can be made to—cordage, twines, mats, bags, slippers.
But it might be worthwhile to point out that no fiber combines the optimum of all desirable qualities. A study says that most have some unique properties particularly adapted to the special requirements of its production. In fact, no two synthetic fibers are ever identical in properties in the same vein that abaca and sisal have their differences even if they are both fibers of a kind. Abaca remains a unique fiber and even a more unique specialty material which cannot be imitated by man-made fibers. And today, we can now throw in the factor of biodegradability which is a world-wide concern.
Abaca is so much Albay like Mayon Volcano, like Sarong Banggi, like tigsik, like pili. Besides, it is reputedly the most ancient cultivated fiber plant originating from Southeast Asia which could very well be the Philippines or the Bikol Region or more particularly Albay knowing that abaca requires “loose soil, rich in humus and with good drainage, and humidity both in the atmosphere and in the soil . . . with heavy rainfalls more or less evenly distributed throughout the year.” That’s exactly Albay’s soil and weather.
Any other natural fiber plant has its own pests. Boll weevil attacks cotton, black caterpillars ruin ramie, fungi and virus wither flax. Abaca has aphids. And for any other trade, the world market is never a national patrimony. Agreeably, any crop is subject to the vagaries of nature, any trade to man’s demands and needs. Only sound policies can remain constant. - Raffi Banzuela
(This article first appeared in THE BICOL FOLIO (Your paper for understanding Bikol), Vol. I No. 4, Year 1989)
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One reason President Manuel Roxas (in bastopol) came to Albay
was abaca.
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| The railway system went down to the Legazpi and the Tabaco Ports because of abaca. Time was when these ports were busier and earning five times more than the Port of Manila. |
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| Abaca fibers undergoing the traditional sun drying process. |
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| Marketing the fibers. Take note of the bascula romana then used for weighing. |
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