Philippine National Standard for Galvanized Products for Roofing

There is now a new director in charge for the Bureau of Product Standards (BPS) in the person of Atty. Victorio Mario A. Dimagiba who came from DTI's Consumer welfare and Protection. He replaced long time BPS Director Eng'r. Jesus L. Motoomull as a result of reshuflling of assignments at DTI.

Last January 21, Atty. Dimagiba convened the industry representatives and technical committee ( TC 64) members for a get-to-know-you session, at the same time discuss the status of the product standard for galvanized steel for roofing application. For a long time now, this standard was not yet settled, hence implementation and enforcement apparently is also on hold.

Last June 28, 2008, the former BPS director already signed the standard recommended by the TC 64 but implementation was put on hold since no implementing rules and regulation (IRR) among others were promulgated.

During the meeting, discussions were again made especially on the issue of total coated thickness (TCT) vs. base metal thickness (BMT), mass of coating and service life on the instance of Steelcorp which persistently endorses the BMT approach , as contained in their recent memo ( dated last week) to the the new director in charge.

As a long time member of the TC 64, this seems to me a repeat of the many and countless instances in the past years that this was tackled and agreed upon by the TC members. Nevertheless, the meeting ended with a positive and promising note as clearly proclaimed by the new director.

The new director wants this product finished, approved, promulgated and implemented in 2 months time. He therefore instructed the TC 64 to immediately convene next week to proceed and finished this long overdue product standard.