Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 3) — Tens of thousands of so-called REwear, or re-usable, washable, and re-wearable face masks per week for frontline workers may be produced by the end of the month, the Department of Science and Technology said on Wednesday.
“The main beneficiary of the mass production of our re-wearable, reusable, re-washable mask is really the frontliners, the health workers, and those at the checkpoints and other kinds, categories of frontliners,” said Secretary Fortunato dela Peña in a Laging Handa virtual briefing on Wednesday.
The Philippine Textile Research Institute #, the agency’s research and development arm, is in charge of producing the face masks. Dela Peña said current production is at 10,000 units per week.
“Our target production initially is 500,000. We have already earmarked half of it for the frontliners in cooperation with the (National) Task Force that is taking charge of logistics and of course, the rest that we will produce will be part of the stockpiling of inventory of masks by the Philippine government,” he said.
For the masks to work, they require “water repellency of the textile material and this is being done by applying a certain compound and of course, we are preparing the use of natural textile like cotton,” Dela Peña said.
He said the agency is hoping to get more people on board to sew masks.
“Most of our production now is coming from the sewers of Taytay (Rizal) and also from Cavite, and we expect to have more collaborators for this,” the Cabinet official said.
