The Philippines grows 87% of the world’s abaca fiber. China turns it into textiles. Guess who keeps the margin.
About 200,000 Filipino farming families harvest these stalks by hand. The entire country earns roughly $100M a year from abaca exports, raw fiber and finished products combined. That’s $500 per farming family per year from the strongest natural fiber on earth.
Meanwhile, Chinese textile manufacturers sell finished abaca fabric to Levi’s, Calvin Klein, GAP, and dozens of global brands at markups that make the raw material cost a rounding error. The abaca fiber market is growing at ~8% annually toward $150M by 2029, but that growth is almost entirely in processing and finished goods, not in what farmers earn.
The Philippines actually has a competitive edge here. Nine commercial fiber grades versus Ecuador’s five. High genetic diversity. Centuries of cultivation expertise. PhilFIDA has been trying to move the industry up the value chain for decades. But processing requires capital infrastructure and direct relationships with Western brands that Chinese factories locked up years ago.
This is the same pattern playing out across Southeast Asian commodities. The country with the resource exports raw material. The country with the factories captures the spread. You’re watching a video of Philippine agricultural wealth being converted into Chinese manufacturing margin in real time.
That $100M in Filipino export earnings? A single Chinese denim manufacturer like Black Peony does more than that serving just one brand account.
A bird photographer from Cagayan de Oro has captured a rare sighting in Misamis Oriental: a white crow that has since gone viral and sparked curiosity online.
According to Kuya Kim’s report on “24 Oras,” Wednesday, Jun Rey Yap took the photos during his visit to Jasaan just last month.
The white crow in Jasaan was rescued by a family in 2020.
Read more:
https://t.co/KmUOFFd2Rh
Normal ba na wala ka trabaho tapos nagsesearch ka na ng matutuluyan sa pinaplano mong Commodore pilgrim 😅 Sa isip mo, may itinerary ka na, tatakbo ka ng morning for 2 days, then swim sa beach sa hapon, before ka magstart sa pilgrim. Yan na yung IT ko sa isip ko. 🤣
@camzfiles@GrldBeltran If asking is a sign of your definition for bobo, i wanna know your credentials. Kahit po di bahain ang lugar, may tinatakdang disaster prone areas esp near water ways. Those mining and buildings m8ght havr contribute but You dont have to be rude. 😉 nothing but love for you
Imagine if every public official knew CPR, First Aid, and rescue basics.
Imagine if, during typhoons or emergencies, all leaders are on the ground instead of flying out.
That’s the kind of leadership our communities deserve — ready, trained, and present.
The second of the new educational challenges is digital education. Educate yourselves on how to humanize digital spaces, making them into areas of fraternity and creativity, not cages to trap yourselves in. Don’t let the algorithm write your story! Be the authors: use technology wisely, but don’t let technology use you.