Marking the future of local textiles: The Philippines’ push for Digital Product Passports

Across global supply chains, garments and fabrics can touch various hands several times before reaching consumers, often leaving little accessible information about where they came from, how they were produced, or what happens to them at the end of their life.

For Philippine handloom weavers, the problem carries another consequence. Counterfeit products can reproduce distinctive indigenous patterns and designs, potentially undermining the livelihood of communities whose textiles are rooted in generations of cultural knowledge and identities.

In November 2025, more than 120 weavers from 40 weaving communities in the country united to sign the historic Weavers’ Manifesto, a battle cry against imitation and machine-made replicas of their authentic handwoven textile products. The Weavers’ Manifesto pushes for the rights of handloom weavers, strives to safeguard their work and strengthen policies to protect intellectual property rights and support weaving sector development. This dilemma also translates to global textile issues. To address this, the European Union is moving toward greater product transparency by implementing the Digital Product Passport (DPP) by 2030. If a product has no DPP, it cannot be exported.

DPP serves as a digital identity or marker of a product, providing detailed information about its origin, materials, production processes, and environmental impact like carbon footprint throughout its lifecycle. Accessible through a QR code, DPP allows users to trace a product’s journey from its raw materials and manufacturing processes to its final form, promoting greater transparency and accountability across the supply chain (Stelmach, 2024). In response to these emerging global standards, the Philippines is strengthening efforts to develop a systematic textile identification and authentication system that can support the Philippine textiles DPP.

The implications extend beyond consumer awareness. Greater transparency can encourage manufacturers to make more sustainable choices in materials and production while helping consumers make more informed purchasing decisions (Stelmach, 2024). In the broader EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, the DPP is envisioned as a tool for improving transparency and traceability across the textile value chain and supporting more sustainable production, consumption, reuse, and recycling (Raghavan, 2024).

The Philippines’ preparations, however, did not begin with the European Union’s DPP agenda. The country has long faced the challenge of protecting its handloom weaving communities from counterfeiting.

One legislative effort came through Senate Bill No. 241, or the Philippine Handloom Weaving Industry Development Act of 2022, filed by Senator Loren Legarda in 2022. The proposed measure seeks to develop and protect the country’s handloom weaving industry and provides for a National Handloom Weaving Development Council to coordinate and facilitate government efforts for the local weaving sector (Senate of the Philippines, 2022).

At the forefront of Philippine textile innovation, the Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Textile Research Institute (DOST-PTRI) is advancing efforts to digitize, preserve, and protect the country’s handloom weaving traditions. In September 2022, through its DigiTELAzation Program, DOST-PTRI brought digital technology into weaving communities across the country through initiatives that include the scoping and documentation of local textiles, digitization of weaving patterns, and the development of covert technologies for textile authentication.

These efforts are further supported by projects funded by the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev), including the Digitization of the Philippine Handloom Weaving Industry and Intelligent Solutions in Sustaining the Philippine Handloom Industry. One of its key digital tools is DOST-PTRI’s Salinhabi Mobile App, which serves as a repository for documenting Philippine handloom textiles and registering distinctive weaving patterns of local weaving communities.

The initiative also brings digital tools directly to local weavers, allowing them to document and register their unique designs even from their own communities. By making this platform accessible, the system can help consumers learn more about a textile’s origin, materials, production, and cultural story, while creating a direct digital connection between weavers and the people who purchase their work. Digital registration provides an additional layer of protection against the unauthorized reproduction of distinctive Philippine textile patterns.

Preserving a textile digitally is only one part of the challenge. But how do you prove that the physical textile in front of you is the authentic one?

Beyond digitizing local weaves, DOST-PTRI is developing SPECTRUM, a project exploring light-responsive and photoluminescent materials that can be used in Philippine textile markers. By applying advanced colorant technologies and developing covert security markings that can be embedded into textile fibres and dyes, the project aims to create another layer of authentication for Philippine textile products. It also conforms to the DPP standards and protects proprietary or culturally significant designs from imitation and counterfeiting.

For Philippine handloom weaving, this could mean that the identity of a textile is no longer confined to its physical appearance. It could be digitally documented, technologically authenticated, and traceable throughout its journey to the local and global market.

Once the Philippine textile marker and its corresponding system are fully developed and aligned with applicable standards, these technologies could support the identification and authentication of Philippine textile products, particularly those intended for international markets.

This is where government coordination becomes critical. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), through its standards and trade-related offices, together with DOST-PTRI and other agencies involved in the handloom weaving sector, can manage the logistics needed to translate technological innovation into a system that works for actual producers and exporters.

As global markets move toward greater transparency and circularity, Philippine textiles can enter the conversation not only as traditional crafts, but as traceable, authenticated, culturally significant, and sustainably produced products.

To further amplify the conversation on DPP, the first-ever Global Textile Congress and the 2026 Philippine Textile Congress (PTC) Opening Plenary Session, which will feature Mr. Nikolaus Martys, Industrial Development Expert from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Austria, as plenary speaker for Digital Product Passports for textiles. The session will be held on 7 September 2026, from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM at Ang Bahay ng Alumni, University of the Philippines – Diliman, Quezon City, and is open to the public upon registration.

The country’s digitization initiatives, handloom-weaving policy efforts, and emerging textile authentication technologies point toward a future in which technology does not erase the human story behind a fabric. Instead, it helps preserve it and amplify the innovative materials it carries. The future of Philippine textiles may be digital, but the story it carries remains unmistakably Filipino. One that truly cares for nature and its people.