The Cement Manufacturers’ Association of the Philippines (Cemap) has asked the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) here to locate and withdraw about 30,000 bags of low quality Chinese Horse brand cement, which have been illegally released for sale in the cities of Davao and General Santos. "To protect consumers from the dangers of using substandard cement products, we request the trade department to trace the buyers of the Horse brand and take back the products to prevent accidents that may occur after using the low quality cement," Cemap president Ernesto Ordoez said. The Chinese cement had been previously banned from being sold in the market after failing critical parameters such as the autoclave expansion and the seven-day quality testing conducted by the DTI. As this developed, importers were not able to secure an Import Commodity Clearance from the Bureau of Product Standards.

The brand was discovered to be lacking the required permanent bag markings such as the name and address of the manufacturer, the country of manufacture, the type of Portland cement, and the batch identification number, which were designed to ensure consumer safety.
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