In 2016, garlic production in the Philippines was about 7,469 mt (PSA, 2017), which is only 6.22 percent of the annual demand of about 120,000 mt. Concurrently, Ilocos Norte produces approximately 55.71 percent of the total garlic production in the country. Data of the Philippine Statistics Authority revealed that garlic production in 2006 was about 12,581 mt, which was 41 percent higher than in 2016. The decreased in the volume of production was attributed to the declining production areas from 4,448 ha in 2006 to 2,647.2 ha in 2016 (PSA, 2017). Farmers opted to plant other high-value crops due to the high cost of garlic planting materials brought about by climatic variability and the infestation of virus diseases incurred in 1998 and 1999. With these challenges, the need to produce virus-free garlic planting material is very crucial.
In the Philippines, garlic (Allium sativum Lin.) is commonly propagated through its cloves, and the planting materials that are circulating have been used for so long already. Most of the planting materials that farmers are using shown to have disease infection which may cause significant reduction in yield. Thus, there is a need to renew the source of planting materials to address these issues. 

Initiatives have been done by the Mariano Marcos State University to take part in addressing the above concerns. For one, the university was successful in coming up with a protocol for the production of tissue-culture derived garlic planting materials and was able to successfully grow in the field up to 8th generation (Gabriel et al., 2010). On-farm trials for these planting materials were conducted among selected farmers in the province. The result indicates that tissue culture-derived garlic was more superior to those from cloves. Along the line, however, the infection was observed once the bulbs were grown in the field, as evidenced by the curling of leaves. Besides, this method of producing virus-free planting material requires very long procedures, is very expensive, complicated, and requires state-of-the-art facilities and equipment. 
Secondly, trials on the use of bulbils as garlic planting materials have been made. The initial result of the study shows that G1 garlic from bulbils produced higher yields than those from cloves. This development shows the enormous potential of bulbils as a seed source, and this strategy is cheaper than tissue culture. 

The potential to produce a standard size fully formed bulb in a single growing season using bulbils as the planting material could represent a significant step towards improving the cost and operational efficiency of garlic production. However, it should be emphasized that only a few cultivars appeared to have this potential. 
The cultivars with the highest average bulbil weight planted tended to produce the most massive heads with the highest proportion of fully developed bulbs. This suggests that the likelihood of being able to grow large, fully developed bulbs within a second-generation (G2) when bulbils are planted. However, further study should be made for a more conclusive result and the need to intensify bulbil production; hence, this research.

 a.  Available clean planting materials 
 b.  Capacitated farmers on garlic production for planting materials 
 c.  Organized garlic seed growers