The trend of setting up a national inventory of chemicals – already seen in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan – is moving south. The Philippines and Vietnam have existing inventories, while Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia also have plans for one.
Despite regulatory hurdles that might have caused due to disparate regulations and approaches across the region, the overall trend – if slower than other regions – is a shift in focus from primarily GHS-based requirements towards more comprehensive, risk-based chemicals management regimes that mandate registration before use.
Philippines
Name
Philippines
ISO
PH
Region
South East Asia & Indian Continent
Risk
Deforestation
Yes
Transhipment
Yes
Labour Rights & H&S
Yes
Environment
Yes
Biodiversity
Yes
Forest Area
Land Area
29,817,000
ha
Forest Area
8,280,000
ha (27.8%)
FSC CoCs
10
PEFC CoCs
2
Paper Mills 1
| Mill |
|---|
| Mabalacat City Trust International Paper Corp |
Forest Legislations 1
Southeast Asia – are chemical controls taking hold?
Chemical Watch, 4 Dec 2019
Asian factory workers face slavery risks with rise of automation in manufacturing: analysts
The Japan Times, 12 Jul 2018
The rise of robots in manufacturing in Southeast Asia is likely to fuel modern-day slavery as workers who end up unemployed due to automation face abuses competing for a shrinking pool of low-paid jobs in a “race to the bottom”. Especially, the workers in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines — at least 137 million people — risk losing their jobs because of the automation in the next two decades. Those workers are more vulnerable to workplace abuses as they jostle for fewer jobs at lower wages.
Surge in deaths of environmental activists over past decade, report finds
The Guardian, 15 Apr 2014
A new Global Witness report, ‘Deadly Environment’, shows there has been a surge in the killing of activists protecting land rights and the environment over the past decade with three times as many deaths in 2012 compared to the previous 10 years. Between 2002 and 2013, at least 908 activists were killed in 35 countries with only 10 convictions. The most deadly countries in the scope of the report were Brazil (448 since 2002), Honduras (109), Philippines (67), Peru (58) and Thailand (16). The deaths are linked to activism against a range of activities including illegal logging, cattle ranching, soy bean farming, mining and the building of hydroelectric dams.