By Mortz C. Ortigoza
The other day I bumped into Dante Sison – the franchisee of all Levi Strauss &
Co. products - in the four cities of the gargantuan
Pangasinan province.
I was inside the Levi store in CSI Mall in Barangay Lucao,
Dagupan City the other day when he told me that Levi's store in the Philippines
are no longer selling Dockers’ slacks. I was looking for that stuff as gift for
my hardworking self, te-he he.
They were not selling it, Dante stressed, for several years
already.
Levi - the maker of the elegant Docker - is one of the world’s top and oldest jeans maker
My now Missus Miles and I used to buy the slacks in the
early of 1990s at Dante’s store in AB Fernandez Street of the city when I was
an Assistant Professor at Lyceum Northwestern University while she was my
girlfriend taking Bachelor of Science in Nursing at the same college.
Dante said that even Levi stopped manufacturing its sturdy
and famous jeans in Pasong Tamo Ext. in Makati City.
“The Levis products we sell come from Southeast Asian countries”.
 |
| Cheap laborers in an Asian's country. Photo credit Investvine |
“Oh, I did know about it too. After my siblings and in-laws
went to the United States decades ago I no longer visited the Levi’s Store as they
sent me gratis jeans from the U.S whose goodies came from the manufacturers' sites in Mexico, India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Indonesia," I said.
When I looked at the brown slack’s Levi pants I bought inside label, it
showed made in Cambodia. Their tees and collared dress there are sewn in Pakistan.
“Why Levi left the
Philippines?”
“It’s about the labor
rate in our country,” Dante retorted.
Minimum wages a day in Metro Manila and provinces of Laguna
and Pangasinan are P537, P400, P340, respectively.
Minimum daily wages in Cambodia and Vietnam are both measly P323 a day or US$190 a month as the highest in their region.
***
Ramon Martelino, Levi Strauss Philippines country
manager as quoted by the Philippines Star, said the closure in August 1, 2008
of the cut-and-sew apparel plant would allow the group to focus on its core
competency of marketing its branded products in Asia and in line with
the group’s overall global strategy to further grow its business in the
region.
“Dockers are still sold around the world except in the
Philippines,” Dante said.
“It’s because (its being not marketed here)
Filipinos could not patronize it (because of its hefty price that runs to
thousands of pesos for each slack),” I posed my query.
“Probably”.
Martelino explained that relocating to other countries was
difficult to the company because it left 257 Filipino workers losing their job.
“We have examined
comprehensively all other options, including cost containment and improving the
efficiency and productivity of this plant as first options. Unfortunately, such
measures cannot overcome the significantly lower costs of outsourcing,”
Martelino explained.
***
Aside from the lackluster presence of foreign direct investment
(FDI) in the Philippines, one of the culprits that employers left the country
to put shop in those Asian countries I mentioned earlier was because of our
minimum wage law.
In the mid-1950s, our
minimum wage law came into operation. When foreign manufacturing firms like
those owned by the Americans started to settle in East Asia in the 1960s, they
put up most of their factories in Hong Kong and Taiwan. They shunned however
the Philippines even though most Filipino workers could understand some English
(unlike the Chinese). Moreover, they still absconded our country even
Pinoy managers were familiar with American business work ethics while
most Chinks could not.
The raison d'etre of these foreign investors to choose Taiwan and
Hong Kong over the Philippines: Wages then were lower there than in the
Philippines and these two countries did not have minimum wage law. Despite our
country enjoying the second highest standard of living in East and Southeast
Asia next to economically growing Japan.
By the way, Japan - according to a hardbound I bought titled The Great Betrayal and authored by that wordsmith's Patrick J. Buchanan - regained its economic hegemony thanks to the acquiescence of the U.S to lower its tariffs for her trades so she did not fall to Communism.
In the early 1970s we began to lose that economics lead to Hong Kong and Taiwan.
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Die Inefficient Pinoy Producers DieBad, Good News sa Ekonomiya ng Pinas
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MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA
I am a twenty years seasoned Op-Ed Political Writer in various newspapers and Blogger exposing government corruptions, public officials's idiocy and hypocrisies, and analyzing local and international issues. I have a master’s degree in Public Administration and professional government eligibility. I taught for a decade Political Science and Economics in universities in Metro Manila and cities of Urdaneta, Pangasinan and Dagupan. Follow me on Twitter @totoMortz or email me at totomortz@yahoo.com.
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