Will “Bayong” Help in The Economic Crisis?

Just this month the DTI (Department of Trade and Industries) is encouraging the use and production of the “bayong” to help save jobs in the countryside and of course this will turn the saving of the environment. The pet  project is called Bayong Development Project.To those who were not familiar or don’t speak tagalog, bayong is made from buri palm leaves and then woven to create the bag. Other materials are also used like pandan leaves, sabutan, romblon and abaca which is usually found in the areas of the Philippines. Now the other question is, will this help create jobs? Since creating bayong is labor intensive, it will surely create jobs specially to those who live in the rural areas because the indigenous materials are available there. But even though this will create jobs because of how it is manufactured, the areas of concern will be the practically of it so it can be easily accepted and used instead of using plastic bags which are harmful to the environment.

Plastic bags are everywhere and many times cheaper than a hand woven bayong. The reason why it is cheap is because the materials are cheap and machines are used to manufacture them. Machines can be used to bring down the cost but how about the jobs? there will be less job and since machines used electricity, there will be less saving of the environment too because electricity needs power plants that use coal or diesel to generate electricity. One exemption is, if electricity comes from geothermal or hydro electric power plants.

With all of those dumb analysis I made above, I think the major issue there is how we as human beings living in this planet cares about what is happening to our environment. If we loose this planet called earth, there will be no jobs, no business, no technology and no economy. So just let’s use bayong to help create jobs and save the environment or green bag if you think bayong is old fashioned and don’t care much about helping small rural entrepreneurs.