Board of Investments Executive Director Ma. Corazon Halili-Dichosa is right to call the sector a priority. But declaring a priority is not the same as treating it like one. The steel industry is the skeleton upon which the flesh of modern infrastructure is built. Without domestic capacity, every bridge, railway, and housing project becomes more expensive, more dependent on imports, and more vulnerable to global shocks.
The promise of the updated roadmap is welcome. A unified direction and shared commitment are necessary first steps. But as Dichosa herself cautions, the roadmap is only the beginning. The real test lies in implementation-and that is where past efforts have routinely failed. Fragmented efforts, limited resources, and a lack of coordination across agencies have long plagued Philippine industrial policy. There is no excuse for repeating those mistakes. Technical adviser Rafaelita Aldaba cuts to the heart of the matter. Demand is not the problem. The Philippines has a large and growing market for steel products. The problem is that demand is ‘not sufficiently bankable.’ Investors face punishing energy and logistics costs, scarce long-term finance, and missing segments in the value chain-particularly in flat steel production and mineral development. These are not mysterious forces of nature. They are policy failures.
High electricity rates and poor logistics infrastructure are perennial complaints across Philippine industries. That they remain binding constraints on steel-a sector that could anchor wider manufacturing growth-suggests a failure of cross-agency coordination. The roadmap cannot simply identify these gaps; it must compel action from the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, the Philippine Ports Authority, and financial regulators. Otherwise, it becomes just another document.
Then there is the issue of skills. As the industry moves toward greener and more advanced production, the demand for skilled workers will grow. Where is the parallel roadmap for technical education and workforce development? The Department of Labor and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) should already be at the table. This roadmap, when finalized, must be judged not by its prose but by its concrete outcomes: lower energy costs for steelmakers, streamlined financing mechanisms, and a clear timeline for closing value chain gaps. The government has said it will prioritize interventions given limited resources. That is sensible, but prioritization must be transparent and strategic-not an excuse for inaction.
Yes, this should have been done a long time ago. But since it wasn’t, the only unforgivable act now is to let the new roadmap gather dust. The steel industry does not need another study. It needs steel policy-focused, funded, and fiercely implemented.