Concerns raised over substandard steel bars

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Iron and Steel Institute (PISI) has expressed concern over substandard steel bars being sold in the market.

In a statement, PISI said it found another batch of steel bars that are either unmarked or without registered logos in central and northern Luzon.

PISI’s monitoring team purchased the steel bars from Uniking Commercial in La Union and Krizwood Construction Supply in Pampanga last month.

“Needless to say, we are troubled by this occurrence (and) persistent menace”, PISI president Ronald Magsajo said.

Apart from these new batch of substandard steel bars, PISI said recent tests conducted on samples of steel products manufactured by Davao Mighty Steel Corp. showed it did not comply with safety standards.

The company’s 10mm rebars passed tests conducted by the Metals Industry Research and Development Center, but the 12mm rebars were deficient in terms of mass variation.

Magsajo said there is reason to believe similar unmarked and untraceable bars have found their way across other regions and were possibly smuggled into the country.

“We cannot overemphasize the dangers posed to lives and property by having noncompliant, untraceable bars in the market,” he said.

He said the practice would also affect the government’s  “Buy Local” campaign.

Last month, PISI also discovered substandard rebars in hardware stores in Central Luzon that were allegedly manufactured by Real Steel Corp. and Metrodragon Steel.

In June, Real Steel and Philippine Koktai Metal were already found selling undersized rebars.

Rebars being sold by the two firms failed to meet standards on mass variation, bending, lug height and diameter, as well as tensile and yield strength.

PISI has been intensifying its campaign against substandard steel products as the construction sector has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.