Magkaisa Junk JPEPA

People’s Coalition urges vigilance on JPEPA implementation; Bantay JPEPA launched

2009-11-04T13:09:00.001+08:00

As the nation awaits the Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement, the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC) reiterated its call for the public to be vigilant in monitoring the implementation of the JPEPA with the launching of the Bantay JPEPA campaign last May 20, 2009. As of the moment focus is on three vulnerable sectors: (1) nurses; (2) automotive industry; and (3) the environment.

The campaign aims to:

(1) Conduct an annual review and monitoring of the implementation of the JPEPA, including initiating dialogue with legislators;
(2) Coordinate with other trade groups with similar advocacies, to strengthen the initiative; and
(3) Give assistance to vulnerable sectors and act as coordinating boy among the stakeholders.

Recognition of the “Apat na Tapat” – Senators Jamby Madrigal, Chiz Escudero, Noynoy Aquino and Nene Pimentel, who voted against the treaty, was also held at the grounds of the Senate.

People’s Coalition calls on Supreme Court to uphold Philippine Constitution as Japan-RP Pact Takes Effect Tomorrow

2009-01-14T17:31:00.001+08:00

10 December 2008, Quezon City . The Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC) called on the Supreme Court to take decisive action on the constitutional and legal questions surrounding the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).

The MJJC made this call in view of the Court’s inaction despite the looming implementation of the JPEPA, which is expected to take effect on Thursday.

It will be recalled that the MJJC on October 13, 2008 questioned the constitutionality of JPEPA and implored the Supreme Court to halt its implementation.. Petitioners include the Alliance of Progressive Labor, Concerned Citizens Against Pollution, EcoWaste Coalition, Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment through Alternative Legal Services Inc., Kilusan Para sa Pagpapaunlad ng Industriya ng Pangisdaan, Mother Earth Foundation, NGOs for Fisheries Reform, Philippine Metal Workers Alliance and Akbayan Rep. Ana Theresia Hontiveros-Baraquel

“We have seen that the Supreme Court is perfectly capable of acting expeditiously on matters of grave national importance. Why then is it dragging its feet on an agreement that is potentially more devastating than Philippine membership in the World Trade Organization and is blatantly unconstitutional?” Atty. Golda Benjamin, lead counsel of the MJJC, asked.

Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo and Japanese Ambassador Makoto Katsura had exchanged diplomatic notes last month and set December 11, 2008 as the date that the JPEPA would enter into force. JPEPA opponents had filed a case with the Supreme Court questioning the constitutionality of the trade treaty and asking for a restraining order which the High Court had declined to grant.

“We ask the Honorable Supreme Court to give justice to the millions of poor Filipinos who will suffer needlessly because of the government’s failure to protect their rights and interests during the negotiation of the JPEPA. We call on our Honorable Justices to abide by their solemn duty to uphold the Philippine Constitution and defend the interests of the Filipino people,” Benjamin stated.

The MJJC also called on all Filipinos to exercise continued vigilance in the light of the impending implementation of the JPEPA.

“Philippine officials have asked us to ‘give JPEPA a chance.’ What they are really saying is, we have no choice but to accept the JPEPA because it’s already there. We refuse to accept such a defeatist attitude,” Josua Mata, Secretary General of the Alliance of Progressive Labor, said.

“Contrary to what some JPEPA apologists are saying, implementing JPEPA would only hasten the collapse of our industrial capacities that are now tottering as a result of the global crisis. After all, JPEPA severely constricts our policy space in the areas of trade and investments,” Mata added.

The MJJC will monitor the implementation of the JPEPA very closely, publicly disclose its ill effects and hold government officials accountable and liable.

“We choose not to be defeated. This battle -- for economic justice, environmental integrity, national sovereignty, and Philippine pride -- is far from over,” the MJJC said.

The MJJC, a multisectoral people’s coalition, has vigorously campaigned for the Senate rejection of JPEPA on economic, environmental, constitutional, legal and ethical grounds.

An act of national betrayal

2008-10-12T22:10:00.000+08:00

In an act of national betrayal, sixteen so-called representatives of the people voted to approve the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement.

Sixteen votes to approve the JPEPA. Sixteen votes to sell the Filipino people’s freedom, dignity, and future. Sixteen votes [that said] affirming:

* a treaty that is admittedly weak and badly negotiated is good enough for the Filipino people.
* it is correct to violate Philippine laws and the Constitution to accommodate the requests of a powerful and rich nation such as Japan.
* it is correct to accept that Filipino nurses can be discriminated against.
* it is correct to allow a rich nation like Japan to protect its fishermen and farmers while Philippines [negotiators] abandoned their own.
* It is acceptable to foresake the environment and health of Filipinos by allowing toxic wastes and other poisonous substances to be commodified under a trade agreement.
* it is correct to say that the Filipino is not good enough to be protected and defended.

In the midst of financial and political turmoil, countries are fighting to protect their own people, uphold national interest, and ensure that the lives and livelihood of their citizens are defended according to the demands not only of law but of basic demands of justice and human rights.

On the Senate floor, only four rightful representatives of the people voted to stand up for the Filipino, with the Filipinos. These are today’s heroes: Senator Jamby Madrigal, Senator Chiz Escudero, Senator Noynoy Aquino, and Senator Nene Pimentel. They did what they swore to do: serve the Filipino people.

We, the members of the Magkaisa JUNK JPEPA Coalition, are enraged by this shameful act performed was once the hallowed floors of the Senate. The fight for this nation cannot be made to end in their bloodied hands. These sixteen people cannot take part in the determination of this country’s future. Never again shall we allow cast our vote to call them leaders.

We will march on and invoke the wisdom of the highest court of the land.

We refuse to mourn for this act against the people. We choose not to be defeated. We choose to fight against any and all attempts to sell this proud nation and its people to the highest bidder.

We call on every Filipino to join us in our continuing struggle and NOT to forget the injustice that these 16 Senators did today.

Para sa Pilipas.Para sa Pilipino.

Magkaisa JUNK JPEPA.

An Act of National Betrayal: Senate Approves JPEPA

2008-10-09T18:05:00.002+08:00

In an act of national betrayal, sixteen so-called representatives of the people voted to approve the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement.

Sixteen votes to approve the JPEPA. Sixteen votes to sell the Filipino people’s freedom, dignity, and future. Sixteen votes that said:

a treaty that is admittedly weak and badly negotiated is good enough for the Filipino people
it is correct to violate Philippine laws and the Constitution to accommodate the requests of the powerful and rich nation, Japan
it is correct to accept that Filipino nurses can be discriminated against
it is correct to allow a rich nation like Japan to protect its fishermen and farmers while Philippine negotiators abandoned them.
it is correct to say that the Filipino is not good enough to be protected and defended.

In the midst of financial turmoil, countries are fighting to protect their own people, uphold national interest, and ensure that the lives and livelihood of their citizens are defended according to the demands not only of law but of basic demands of justice and human rights.

On the Senate floor, only four rightful representatives of the people voted to stand up for the Filipino, with the Filipinos. These are today’s heroes: Senator Jamby Madrigal, Senator Chiz Escudero, Senator Noynoy Aquino, and Senator Nene Pimentel. They did what they swore to do: serve the Filipino people.

We, the members of the Magkaisa JUNK JPEPA Coalition, are enraged by this shameful act performed on the floors of the Senate. The fight for this nation cannot be made to end in their bloodied hands. These sixteen people cannot take part in the determination of this country’s future. Never again shall we allow cast our vote to call them leaders.

We will march on and invoke the wisdom of the highest court of the land.

We refuse to mourn for this act against the people. We choose not to be defeated. We choose to fight against any and all attempts to sell this proud nation and its people to the highest bidder.

We call on every Filipino to join us in our continuing struggle and NOT to forget the injustice that these 16 Senators did today.

Para sa Pilipas.Para sa Pilipino.

Magkaisa JUNK JPEPA.

- Magkaisa JUNK JPEPA Coalition

Sayonara JPEPA !

2008-08-30T00:31:00.000+08:00

Experts cite illegality and failed trade objectives in JPEPA

2008-08-30T00:21:00.002+08:00

27 August 2008, Pasay, City – In a forum organized by the multi-sectoral group Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC) entitled, "JPEPA Losers and Gainers: Constitutional and Trade Issues", two experts provided a bruising critique of the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) before members of the press, civil society and Senate staff.

Constitutional, international law expert and former dean of the UP College of Law, Prof. Merlin Magallona, and former commercial attaché and former director of the Department of Trade and Industry Bureau of International Trade Relations, Ms. Edna Espos weighed the constitutional and trade issues facing the JPEPA, and gave the treaty a thumbs down, concluding that the JPEPA will make the Philippines and the Filipinos big losers to Japan.

Unconstitutionality of JPEPA

“JPEPA is an essential aspect of the Japanese relocation strategy and JPEPA’s benefits will be accruing to the Japanese subsidiaries in the Philippines,” explained Magallona.

In his analysis, Magallona dissects how the JPEPA by granting extensive national treatment principle gives away to the Japanese sacred Constitutional rights reserved for Filipinos, such as to own land in the Philippines, the right practice certain professions, operate and administer educational institutions. This essentially places Japanese nationals and their investments at parity with Filipinos.

According to Magallona, if very little preference is extended to the Filipino vis-à-vis the Japanese investors under the JPEPA, what is the value of being a Filipino in your own national economy?

On the issue of the pending exchange of notes that Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago claims will address the Constitutional issues in JPEPA, Magallona was cautious; elaborating that without the benefit of seeing the actual document it would be very difficult to come up with a definitive analysis favorable or otherwise..

He raised concerns, however, on the impact of the notes on the JPEPA if it is executed merely between the Philippine and Japanese Executive branches, noting that the JPEPA was ratified by the Japanese Diet and is pending concurrence by the Philippine Senate. Any amendment to the agreement entered into by the Philippines with Japan should at least go through a similar process, at a minimum.

Failed Trade Objectives

“Sen. Roxas’ established two tests to gauge the success of JPEPA: first, did we achieve our negotiating objectives, and second, did we gain more than we gave up. The answer to these tests is a resounding no,” exclaimed Espos at the start of her critique on the trade value of JPEPA to the Philippines.

One of the goals for entering into JPEPA, according to Espos, is to gain market access for Philippine exports to Japan. In order to achieve this goal the Philippines under JPEPA drastically eliminated tariffs across the board, exempting only 6 tariff lines for rice and salt and negotiated on issues that it would not even do so under the World Trade Organization.

Instead of reciprocating the gesture, Japan on the other hand, excluded from the coverage of JPEPA at least 197 tariff lines, constituting mainly agricultural and marine products for which the Philippines has competitive advantage. The long list of Japanese exclusions, long-term phase out of tariffs, and deferred market negotiations under JPEPA severely restricted agricultural gains by the Philippines under JPEPA.

Espos further explained that the purported easier market access for electronics, furnitures, and automotive parts under JPEPA is not entirely true. Even without the JPEPA, these products already enter Japan duty-free; JPEPA did not change anything. Philippine garments and footwear exporters cannot take advantage of the duty-free provision under JPEPA because their raw materials do not comply with JPEPA Rules of Origin (ROO), which mandates in part that the raw materials come primarily from Japan or any of the ASEAN countries.

A crucial item that the Philippines failed to get after giving up so much was the removal of the enormous Japanese agricultural subsidy (including subsidies on fishing industry) that aversely affects millions of Filipino farmers and fisherfolks who cannot compete with subsidized products both abroad and at home.

Espos elaborated on the inequity of the JPEPA, by citing that the Philippines eliminated its fish tariffs under JPEPA, but Japan will not even commit to reduce its subsidies on its fishing vessels and will in fact even exclude fish products from the JPEPA.

“We gave up everything, and gained nothing under JPEPA. This is the sorry conclusion facing us with JPEPA,” stated Atty. Golda Benjamin, lead counsel for MJJC. “For a treaty that is so patently unconstitutional and for its failure to obtain the needed gains for Filipino farmers, fisherfolks, workers and exporters, there is only one logical, just, and moral step that the Senate can take, and that is to reject JPEPA.”

Toxic wastes in JPEPA a real threat

2008-08-20T23:59:00.003+08:00

Green groups call on Senate not to ignore environmental issues

12 August 2008, Quezon, City – “The threat posed by toxic wastes in the JPEPA is very real for Filipinos. It behooves our Senators to address this threat and not pretend that it is not there,” stated Marie Marciano, President of Mother Earth Foundation and a member of the multi-sectoral movement called the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC) that held a creative protest in front of the Senate today.

Members of various environmental groups participated in the creative protest in which mock figures of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Senators Mar Roxas and Miriam Defensor-Santiago sat on toxic waste barrels marked JPEPA, miming the common phrase “see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil”. In this instance the three figures are metaphorically washing their hands of JPEPA and the toxic waste nightmare it will bring.

In May of 2007, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso executed a side note expressing Japan’s promise not to export hazardous wastes to the Philippines, as long as it follows Philippine and Japanese laws, as well as the international treaty on toxic wastes known as the Basel Convention. According to Atty. Richard Gutierrez, Executive Director of Ban Toxics!, it is not sufficient to rely on Japan’s promise not to export toxic wastes to the Philippines because there are physical and financial incentives for Japan to export its wastes.

Citing data from the Japanese Ministry of Environment, Gutierrez stated that Japan has been generating over 50 million tons of wastes per year for the past 10 years. Because of their continued generation of waste Japan only has 13.2 years left of physical space in their landfills to dispose of their municipal waste. For their industrial wastes, the Japanese only have 6.1 years left in their landfills.

“It’s simple physics, two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. You either move the Japanese out of Japan or you move the waste out of Japan. This is a no brainer,” stated Gutierrez.

“In terms of cost, the Japanese are spending 2 trillion Yen per year to deal with their wastes,” continued Gutierrez. “Why not export these wastes in the guise of raw materials to poorer countries and save money on the processing cost in Japan? This is a win-win for Japan and a major loss for the country accepting the toxic wastes.”

The environmental groups also mentioned that Japan is struggling with the growing cases of illegal dumping within its borders and data from Thailand and India have revealed that Japan is already exporting toxic wastes to these countries under existing Japanese and international laws.

According to Marciano, the promise to follow laws is not sufficient. “We need to take into account that all these laws define toxic wastes the same way and that they are all implemented rigorously. The fact that Japan is able to export toxic wastes to Thailand and India for the past three years is evidence that Japanese law and the Basel Convention do allow toxic wastes exports.”

In her privilege speech to the Senate sponsoring the ratification of the controversial treaty, Sen. Defensor-Santiago expressly stated that the Senate is recommending to Malacañang the ratification of the Basel Ban Amendment.

“If Malacañang does not endorse the Basel Ban Amendment to the Senate for ratification, this will recommendation will go nowhere,” said Gutierrez “Filipinos have the Constitutional right to a healthful ecology. This is a right based on a legal obligation not on convenience. The Filipino health and environment must constantly be protected, and not when it is politically convenient.”

NGO Leaders from 30 Countries Call for Senate Rejection of JPEPA, Warn against Chemical Trespassing via Toxic Waste Trade

2008-08-13T22:36:00.002+08:00

13 August 2008, Trivandrum, India; Quezon City, Philippines. Opposition against the ratification of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) has gone international with public interest groups across the globe urging the Senate not to ratify the flawed treaty.

In an open letter faxed today to the office of Senate President Manny Villar, 66 non-governmental organization (NGO) leaders from 30 countries currently gathered in Trivandrum, capital city of Kerala state, India for a global conference on chemical safety urged the senators to desist from ratifying the controversial pact.

Among the signatories were member groups of the International Persistent Organic Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN), Pesticide Action Network (PAN) and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) from Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and North America.

“We trust that the Philippine Senate will heed what the local and international civil society groups are saying and be proactive in protecting the Filipino people and the environment from chemical trespassing through toxic waste trade,” Australian lawyer Marian Lloyd-Smith, IPEN Co-Chair, said.

“As groups engaged in the global movement to cut pollution that impairs the health and wellbeing of the people and other creatures in this planet, we empathize with the steadfast stance of public health and environmental justice groups in the Philippines against JPEPA, a treaty that promotes trade in toxic waste,” the open letter reads.

“We join the Filipino people in appealing to the members of the Senate to reject JPEPA, ratify the Basel Ban Amendment, plug loopholes in waste and customs laws to stop toxic waste trade, and initiate policies, applying the principles of precaution and prevention, that will protect the people and the environment from the adverse toxic effects of chemicals,” the open
letter states.

The EcoWaste Coalition, a partner group of GAIA and IPEN in the Philippines, obtained a copy of the letter to the senators, which the group warmly welcomed and circulated to the local press.

“We laud this timely support from our colleagues abroad for the trashing of the discredited JPEPA because of the treaty’s barefaced defects to stand up for the public welfare, the environment and the Constitution,” Manny Calonzo of the EcoWaste Coalition and GAIA said.

In their open letter, the groups reminded the senators that “the Philippines is already struggling with the wastes it generates, and with the widespread lack of information on the toxicity and environmentally-safe management of its wastes," a situation that will not be helped by ratifying JPEPA.

They explained that “the inclusion of hundreds of toxic materials and wastes for zero tariff elimination, including persistent organic pollutant(POP) wastes, nuclear wastes, ozone depleting substances and many other globally banned and controlled chemicals and substances provides unambiguous indicator that trade in toxic wastes is promoted under the pact.”

“The fact that neither Japan nor the Philippines has ratified the Basel Ban Amendment, which prohibits the export of toxic wastes from developed to developing countries for all intents and purposes, including recycling and disposal, makes us wary beyond doubt of the plausible dumping of toxic wastes, including electronic wastes, into the Philippines, turning the country's islands into convenient dumps for all types of garbage from overseas,” they emphasized.

Mar hit on JPEPA constitutionality

2008-08-12T20:32:00.003+08:00

Group sees senator's position
one of political convenience not principle

12 August 2008, Quezon, City – Before the scheduled start of the Senate interpellation on the trade issues of the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) last Monday, Senator Mar Roxas gave an impassioned speech on the boiling issue of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) that has caused bloodshed in the South. Sen. Roxas condemned the MOA-AD as unconstitutional and described it as an agreement “conceived in secrecy, borne of duplicity, enforced through threat and coercion”.

His vehement opposition on the MOA-AD was not lost on Sen. Jamby Madrigal, when the latter took the floor to interpellate him on his speech. Sen. Madrigal reminded Sen. Roxas that the very observations he expressed against the MOA-AD were the very conditions in which the JPEPA is currently embroiled in and how she wished he expressed the same sentiment on JPEPA as with the MOA-AD.

The Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC), a coalition of more than 50 multisectoral groups opposing the uneven trade pact with Japan, took over where Sen. Madrigal left off.

“What is mind boggling is how Sen. Roxas can scream that the MOA-AD is unconstitutional and remain straight faced and defend JPEPA at the same time,” stated the MJJC.

“One can simply be cynical about Mar’s stand and conclude that since the MOA-AD did not make any beneficial trade forecast the good Senator is more than happy to pounce on it. Unlike in JPEPA, which relies on bogus positive trade projections you have the Japanese threatening ODA and direct investment cuts. So even if JPEPA is unconstitutional, he’s happy to accept JPEPA,” explained the MJJC.

The MJJC has for over the past two years revealed that the JPEPA was negotiated in secret with little public consultation. Over the course of the hearings in the Senate in late 2007, it was also revealed that the JPEPA was drafted by a cabal of Japanese and Filipino negotiators with very little accountability to the Filipino people. During these hearings which Senators Roxas and Defensor-Santiago presided over, they were privy to the testimonies of legal luminaries, Retired Supreme Court Justice Florentino P. Feliciano and former University of the Philippines Law School Dean Merlin Magallona that the JPEPA violates the Constitution of the Philippines.

Ret. Justice Feliciano, who is also the former head of the World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body, provided a stinging and critical examination of how the JPEPA gives away to the Japanese sacred Constitutional rights to own land, practice certain professions, operate and administer educational institutions, and own media companies. In his note to the Senate he also explained how JPEPA limits Legislative powers, both at the national and local levels, to enact future laws that could impact JPEPA and how the treaty usurps the Congressional prerogative to set tariff rates, among others.

“Senator Roxas is caught between his two conflicting positions on the Constitution. This is proof that you cannot brandy the Constitution for political convenience. You either apply it evenly in all conditions or you’ll be caught with your foot in your mouth as he was in yesterday’s hearing,” stated the MJJC.

“His only savior now from utter political embarrassment is the side agreement which Japan and the Arroyo administration are concocting to address the constitutional issues,” explained the MJJC. “The reliance on a side agreement for JPEPA is misguided and only serves to gloss over the fundamental flaws of that agreement. Should the MILF enter into a side agreement with the Philippine government addressing the constitutional issues of the MOA-AD, will Sen. Roxas capitulate on his stand as well?”

Contact:

Josua Mata, Alliance for Progressive Labor / Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC), Tel. No. +63 917 794 2431, e-mail: josua@apl.org.ph

Coffin, mourners march to Senate

2008-08-04T13:39:00.006+08:00

JPEPA spells death to environment and economy—green groups

4 August 2008, Pasay City. Concerned civil society groups today held a funeral march at the Philippine Senate to symbolize death to the environment and economy with the ratification of the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).

Among the funeral cortege were members of the EcoWaste Coalition dressed in black, as well as women mourners covered in black veils. Pall bearers carried a white coffin behind which was a huge banner saying, “JPEPA: Toxic to the Environment and Economy”. The mood of the mock funeral was made even grimmer with traditional Philippine funeral music in the background, played live by a 12-man band.

The “black and green protest” by the public health and environmental justice groups serves as a sign of the continued rejection of the treaty by the different sectors in the light of the upcoming floor debates in the Senate. The sponsorship speech, expected to take place this week following circulation of the Committee Report and Senate Resolution seeking concurrence in the ratification of the JPEPA, also signals the commencement of the floor deliberations on the treaty.

“We’d like to remind the Senators that they are duty-bound to protect all aspects of Philippine life from unjust treaties like the JPEPA”, said Manny Calonzo, President of the EcoWaste Coalition, a partner of the multi-sectoral Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC). “We should not allow Japan to take us by a noose like a cow thinking it is being led to its fodder when, in reality, it is being prepared for slaughter. The Filipino people deserve nothing less than a just and beneficial deal that honors our sovereignty and respects our Constitution”, Calonzo added.

The Coalition reiterates that the issues on toxic and nuclear waste dumping remain unresolved despite the exchange of diplomatic notes signed by the Japanese and Philippine governments. A study published by the Ban Toxics, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives and the EcoWaste Coalition slammed JPEPA for failing to protect the public health and the environment with the promotion and facilitation of trade involving a long list of toxic waste materials, including incinerator ash and numerous globally banned and restricted chemicals and substances..

Data gathered by the EcoWaste Coalition show that Japanese wastes have entered and continue to enter the country, sometimes disguised as recyclables or second hand goods.

“Majority of our Senators have expressed that they have reservations about this treaty—even they cannot deny that JPEPA is unjust, unconstitutional, and heavily biased toward Japan’s interests at the expense of Philippine sovereignty, economy, and environment. For our Senators to ratify such a treaty—with full knowledge of its terrible flaws—is beyond the limits of what is decent and right, and spells death to our dignity and aspirations as a nation,” said Beau Baconguis of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, a member of the EcoWaste Coalition and the MJJC.

Members of the EcoWaste Coalition, Ban Toxics, Cavite Green Coalition, Concerned Citizens Against Pollution, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Greenpeace Southeast Asia, Health Care Without Harm, Malayang Tinig ng Kababaihan sa Komunidad, Mother Earth Foundation, November 17 Movement, Sagip Pasig Movement, Sanib Lakas ng Inang Kalikasan and Zero Waste Philippines took part in the mock funeral march and drama against JPEPA.

Contact details:

Manny Calonzo: President, EcoWaste Coalition, +63 922 8286343
Beau Baconguis: Campaigner, Greenpeace +63 917 8715257

Doha deal would have deprived RP of safeguards against import surges

2008-08-01T11:23:00.002+08:00

31 July 2008, Quezon City. – A people’s coalition campaigning against the ratification of the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) applauded the collapse of the Doha round of multilateral trade talks in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva.

“A WTO deal would have exposed the developing countries like the Philippines further to the exigencies of the global market and would have deprived the country of safeguard mechanisms against import surges,” Atty. Golda Benjamin, lead counsel of the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA (MJJC), said.

"Under a liberalized trade regime, import-dependent countries like the Philippines face the very real threat of being flooded with highly-subsidized and cheap products from abroad,” she warned.

"With the JPEPA, the Philippines is practically opening up its entire agricultural market with the sole exception of rice and salt to Japanese imports. What we need is some sort of shield from the threat of import surges,” Arze Glipo, lead convenor of the Task Force Food Sovereignty, a partner of the MJJC, said.

The Doha round of multilateral trade talks of the World Trade Organization(WTO) collapsed yesterday over huge disagreements on how to deal with agriculture subsidies and food tariffs. One of the more contentious issues is the proposed language on special safeguards mechanisms for developing countries or SSM.

The SSM is an instrument that would allow developing countries to increase tariffs to ward off the negative effects on the livelihoods of farmers from import surges. Developed countries led by the United States have over the course of the seven-year negotiations been trying to impose strict conditions on the use of SSM.

"The watered-down proposal on SSM in the WTO, that was rightfully rejected by developing countries, would exclude imports covered by bilateral trade agreements like JPEPA from the computation of import volumes, effectively depriving the Philippines and developing countries that have signed bilateral FTAs, the use of this remedial mechanism" explained Joseph Purugganan of the Focus on the Global South, another MJJC partner.

"We are glad that developing countries stood up to defend their right to effective safeguards under the WTO but our urgent call is to the Senate to reject JPEPA. It is a known fact that developed countries are using bilaterals to get what they failed to obtain at the WTO. The Senate must recognize this. It is not yet too late to put the interest of the Philippines at the heart of the JPEPA controversy. There is only one way to vote, no to JPEPA as the developing countries have said NO! to the WTO Doha round of talks," the MJJC stated.

Group Claims a Senate Vote Favoring JPEPA will be Disastrous for Filipinos

2008-08-01T10:25:00.005+08:00

29 July 2008, Pasay City: "A vote for JPEPA is a vote against Filipinos,"was the cry of close to 300 members of the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC), a multi-sectoral network formed in late 2006 opposing the ratification of the controversial Japan-Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), during their rally in front of the Senate today.

The activists held images of Senators in silhouettes with a question mark emblazoned where the Senators' faces ought to be. A giant streamer bearing the message "JPEPA is Anti-Filipino" served as the main backdrop for the many placards held by the demonstrators.

"At the center of this controversy really is whether JPEPA will be clearly beneficial to Filipinos," explained Atty. Golda Benjamin, MJJC lead counsel. "From the past hearings conducted by the Senate on this very issue the Government has totally failed to prove its case that this damned treaty is good for the country."

The issue of the JPEPA once again took center stage after the Supreme Court dismissed the petition filed by several party-list lawmakers and NGOs requesting Malacanang to divulge negotiation information about the much contested treaty. Last week Senate President Manuel Villar intimated the JPEPA will be one of their priorities when session resumes this week.

NO FOOD FOR FILIPINOS

"Our study shows that much of the trumpeted JPEPA gains are imaginary, but the losses are real in terms of job displacement and worsened poverty for rural people who will be driven away from their land and natural resources. The Senate cannot ignore the impacts of JPEPA to the basic food producing sectors," stated Ms. Arze Glipo of the Task Force Food Sovereignty (TFFS), a member of the MJJC.

The group further argues that the JPEPA's text allows the full entry of Japanese multinational companies in crop plantations, fishery, mining, power, etc, depriving the Filipinos the prior right and access to their land and other productive resources.

NO JOBS FOR FILIPINOS

In addition to the loss of jobs in the agricultural sector, JPEPA's is poised to axe at least 77,000 Filipino workers in the automobile industry. Even without the JPEPA, second hand vehicles are already coming in through various ports, most recently the controversy involving Port Irene in Cagayan. With JPEPA, it will open the floodgates to imported used four-wheeled motor vehicles despite the existence of Executive Order 156 that clearly prohibits the same.

"If JPEPA passes in spite of these clear threats to Filipino jobs, it will only worsen the jobless growth we have been experiencing under the Arroyo regime," exclaimed Josua Mata, Secretary General of the Alliance of Progressive Labor, another coalition partner of MJJC.

"The supremacy of Japanese interests in JPEPA, and not the interests of the Filipino people has totally eroded any shred of JPEPA's presumed political and economic ascendancy," Mata emphasized.

NO FUTURE FOR FILIPINOS

JPEPA disregards the basic contract between the government and the Filipino people. Unbiased and respected legal experts, such as retired Justice Florentino P. Feliciano have out rightly called JPEPA as unconstitutional. No less than Senator Miriam Santiago, agreed to Justice Feliciano's conclusion when she spoke to the press after the Senate hearing on the Constitutionality of JPEPA, "it (JPEPA) will be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. That is my humble opinion as a
scholar of constitutional law."

As if the issue of unconstitutionality is not enough, JPEPA's threatens the Philippine environment as well, since the entry of toxic wastes, and other banned or controlled substances such as ozone depleting substances, chemicals that are attributed to climate change, persistent organic pollutants, such as the cancer causing PCBs, and nuclear wastes are facilitated, promoted, and protected under JPEPA.

The Administration attempted to plug this loophole with a side note with Japan, but according to the MJJC no amount of side notes would safeguard the interests of the Filipinos against the problems of JPEPA.

"Can the Senate remain untarnished amidst Malacañang manic push for this illegal and immoral treaty? How will our Senators comport themselves amidst this offensive from President Arroyo? The answers to these questions will be the bellweather of our Senate's independence, their nationalism, and if they are even worthy to be considered come 2010. We hope for all our sake they muster the needed courage to say no to GMA and to JPEPA," the MJJC stated.

SC Decision Does Not Validate the "Discredited JPEPA" - MJJC

2008-07-22T06:58:00.002+08:00

PRESS RELEASE

Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition
c/o IDEALS 4th Floor, MB Building
6 Kalayaan Avenue, Quezon City, Philippines
Media Contact: Atty. Golda Benjamin (0917-3141016)

20 July 2008, Quezon City, Philippines. Reeling from the recent Supreme Court decision dismissing the petition for the full public disclosure of the text and negotiating points of the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition(MJJC), warned the public not be taken by the drumbeats of the pro-JPEPA camp over the setback handed by the High Court.

The MJJC, a broad coalition of labor, peasant, fisherfolk, youth, faith, legal, public health, environmental and social justice groups and movements, disapproved of the Supreme Court’s decision as a retreat into the weakening of democratic debate and the people’s fundamental right to
know.

“There are two issues facing us. One is the SC decision that slammed the door on our rights to information, giving the Executive a free pass on negotiating unconstitutional and unconscionable treaties without the public’s knowledge, and second, the propaganda being thrown to once again prop up the discredited JPEPA,” explained Atty. Golda Benjamin, MJJC lead counsel. “The SC did not rule on JPEPA’s merit, so why is the Administration talking as if it’s a done deal already?”

Voting 10-4, majority of the members of the Supreme Court agreed with Malacañang’s defense of executive privilege. The High Court based its dismissal, in part, on the ground that petitioners failed to present a ‘sufficient showing of need’ that the information sought is critical to the performance to their function as members of Congress.

Interviewed after the release of the SC decision, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo pronounced that “There will be a lot of opportunities for our exports, for our high-value agriculture which would provide huge income for our farmers”.

“GMA is rehashing the JPEPA soundbites that have been disproven a long-time ago. The claimed benefits from JPEPA are illusory. It’s non-existent. The records of the joint Senate Committee hearing of Foreign Relation and Trade and Commerce last year bear this out,” stated Josua Mata of the Alliance of Progressive Labor. “It is very troublesome that GMA would continue with this tract, knowing fully well that seeming benefits from JPEPA are just conjectures.”

“It is of great shame that in the midst of the crisis facing us today, with continued rise in the price of gasoline, food, and basic services around us, GMA instead of taking decisive steps to get us out of the crisis, continues to flog the carcass of JPEPA as a solution,” continued Mata.

The MJJC also took exception to the claim raised by Tarlac Rep. Jeci Lapus, vice chairman of the House committee on good government and public accountability, “There is no longer legal impediment for the Senate ratification of JPEPA now that the High Tribunal has spoken.”

“Rep. Lapus is clearly mistaken. The SC decision does not touch on the merit of JPEPA. In fact the legal black hole in which the treaty is stuck in is a worry for the administration,” said Atty. Richard Gutierrez of Ban Toxics!. “Not only is JPEPA legally impaired because of the various constitutional infirmities it has, it is also impaired because of the social, economic, and environmental burdens it will heap on the Filipinos.”

The Supreme Court said in its majority opinion that since various NGOs and private citizens have already publicly expressed their views on the JPEPA, "there is no basis for petitioners' claim that access to the Philippine and Japanese offers is essential to the exercise of their right to participate in decision-making."

The High Court, observed the MJJC, has conveniently ignored the fact that the petition was filed back in December 2005, at a time when there was very little information on JPEPA that was publicly available, and there was staunch refusal, even defiance on the part of government negotiators,to disclose the status of negotiations. The flow of information, the Coalition pointed out, only started after the petition had been filed, and is certainly a very recent development.

The petition by Akbayan Citizens Action Party, Alliance of Progressive Labor, Pambansang Katipunan ng mga Samahan sa Kanayunan and concerned individuals led by lawmakers Lorenzo Tanada III, Mario Joyo Aguja, Loreta Ann Rosales, Ana Theresia Hontiveros-Baraquel and Emmanuel Joel Villanueva was filed back in December 2005. At that point, there were apprehensions that the JPEPA would be signed at the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Hong Kong, without being made public. The petition was filed in an effort to prevent it from being signed without full public disclosure being done.

JPEPA Decision Strains Credibility and Impartiality of SC

2008-07-20T13:02:00.002+08:00

Office of Sen. Rodolfo G. Biazon
Press Release
July 17, 2008

Senator Rodolfo G Biazon today said the latest decision of the Supreme Court declaring that Executive Privilege may be invoked in the debates on the JPEPA strains the credibility and impartiality of the Supreme Court.

"The Executive Department transmitted the JPEPA for ratification by the Senate on 17 August 2007. This means that even the Executive agrees to the proposition that the Senate's ratification is required for the agreement to be effective."

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on National Defense and Security cited, "Entering into treaties and agreements is a shared responsibility and authority between the Executive and the Legislature specifically through the ratifying powers of the Senate as provided for in the Constitution's Art VII Sec. 21 "No treaty or agreement shall be valid or effective unless concurred in by at least two-thirds of the members of the
Senate."

"Ratification is a process that would entail public debate. How can public debate be proper if Executive Privilege will be invoked denying the public of certain information which is necessary for public acceptance through the Senate of the proposed treaty or agreement. There can be no public debate if information is withheld from the public."

Biazon said upon examination of the records of the proceedings of the 1987 Constitution, the proceedings clearly requires ratification by the Senate of any treaty or any agreement if any of the three characteristics are present:

1. The treaty or agreement is political in nature;

2. The treaty or agreement is permanent in nature; and

3. The treaty or agreement will require a change in national policies.

According to Article 4 of the JPEPA (page 14) "Each party shall examine the possibility of amending or repealing laws and regulations that pertain to or affect the implementation and operation of this Agreement, if the circumstances or objectives giving rise to their adoption no longer exists or if such circumstances or objectives can be addressed in a less trade-restrictive manner."

Biazon said the possibility of repealing or amending existing statues definitely is a change in national policy.

"JPEPA is permanent in nature. Once the Philippines ratifies the said treaty, it is binding upon the parties and must be performed by the parties in good faith. A treaty under international law, being an agreement entered into by states or international organizations must take into consideration the principle of "pacta sunt servanda" or pacts must be respected, " Biazon emphasized.

Biazon concluded, " I believe the Senate, the repository of the ratifying power of the government must examine this development and take appropriate action such as getting involved in the filing of a motion for reconsideration of the decision."

'GMA'

2008-07-10T11:04:00.002+08:00

by Bernardo Lopez
BusinessWorld, May 21, 2008
(original link here)

The GMA in the title stands for "Gloria's Management Ability." Managing an entire nation is more demanding than managing a conglomerate or a multinational. How good is GMA's GMA?

Management involves sensitivity to "processes," which, apart from objectives, are essential in ruling a nation. Many times processes are bypassed in the obsession to reach objectives. Not going through a critical process may sometimes result in undermining or losing the objective one is so eager to achieve. This is where management by process supersedes management by objective.

Let us take a specific example. The objective is to forge a trade deal with Japan, the JPEPA, which is very critical to the nation's future economic growth. In the obsession for the goal, the process of achieving it was ignored. Here is how it happened, one of the biggest management blunders today.

GMA told her boys at the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to get it done. But she did not orient them to the all-important process, namely, a multisectoral consultation to make sure the deal with Japan protects our interests, not just Japan's.

The DTI boys, for fear of not getting the job done on time, immediately sat down with the Japanese and used their creative instincts toward getting not a fair deal but simply a deal, much flawed but forged within the time frame of the boss. They tapped each other's shoulders in appreciation and headed for the bar for a drink to celebrate the "good job," not aware that a monster was incubating.

Not only did the DTI boys get the deal done fast, they had it done in secret to avoid criticisms that would exceed the time limit set by the boss. Secrecy is the complete opposite of participation and transparency. It was so secret that advocacy groups could get the JPEPA document only in bits and pieces, until finally, months after it was negotiated with the Japanese panel, the Senate demanded that it be submitted for scrutiny.

Of course, how can the Senate ratify something it has not read? Instantly, the many worms within the deal emerged. In fear of the boss, and to avoid headaches, the Filipino negotiators said yes to everything the Japanese said. The result was the most lopsided trade deal in the whole of Asia. This "anti-process process" let loose a tsunami of protests from all sectors, the very people the deal was kept secret from, the very people who would be affected by the deal. GMA congratulated her boys for a job well done.

We head toward the second management blunder. Instead of admitting her mistake and conceding to the protests, GMA wanted them quelled. It was her second chance to allow the people their voice, and she failed miserably. Her obsession was the deal, not a fair deal. So her next move was to tell her boys (and girl) at the Senate to go for a Senate ratification ASAP, whether the deal was flawed or not.

Instead of conceding to a dialogue, the GMA boys let loose a barrage of rebuttals in defense of JPEPA, most of them non sequiturs and fallacies. This made the protestors angrier and more vehement in rebutting the rebuttals. The core issue of fair trade was ignored and many irrelevant issues were brought up. The focus was put on legal hurdles rather than fairness. Thus, the conflict escalated to its present state of belligerence from all sides. The pros and antis polarized, and the war is growing into something GMA may not be able to handle at this point.

And so her Senate boys and girl went into a labyrinth of legal maneuvers, side deals, preconditional deals, and so on and so forth, to get the deal done by hook or by crook. Now GMA is headed for her third and biggest management blunder - having a lopsided deal ratified conditionally, which opens up a maze of legal issues that will surely hit the courts and defer economic growth rather than fuel it. Strike three.

Instead of creating a multisectoral commission to try to make JPEPA a fair deal for us, GMA's move was to assign another agency, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), to study it all once more. The problem is the objective, which is to simply jump over the legal hurdles, not to really get a fair deal. They still do not get it up to now - the core issue of a fair deal.

The DFA move is futile because it addresses not the core issue, but only the legal aspects. They gave a timetable of August. So the DFA will come up with a set of legal answers, hoping they have enough time before the Senate votes.

The anti-JPEPA coalitions are getting ready with more missiles against GMA. If the DTI went for a multisectoral commission early on, instead of a secret onerous deal, we would have everything ready by now. It was a management omission. Time is not that important but fairness. Even if it takes a year to address the issue of the JPEPA's fairness, that is the only way to go.

The JPEPA blunder is time and again repeated in many other aspects of GMA's managing a culturally diverse nation of robots and rebels, of goats and sheep.

Answer to Ambassador del Rosario on the JPEPA

2008-05-31T11:39:00.002+08:00

by Ester V. Perez de Tagle

Please allow me space for this reaction to former Ambassador Albert Del Rosario's article of May 2-3, 2008 [see original article here), to point out inaccuracies in the interest of fair play, correct information and the public good.

(1) It is already a fact, stated by constitutional experts and accepted by constitutionalist Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago who, as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has been tasked to look into the legal aspects and submit the necessary Foreign Committee Report on the Jpepa, that it is unconstitutional and lopsided. Her conclusion was unchallenged during the interpellation after her Senate report. Sen. Santiago, probably to provide a graceful exit all around, feels constrained to resort to legal gymnastics to come up with "an improved treaty" to ensure "compliance with at least 15 specified constitutional provisions" via a side agreement with which she hopes to get the Senate's conditional concurrence. She says further: " the basic issue with Jpepa was that the advantages were in favor of Japan, but not necessarily for the Philippines. Another issue was that Jpepa failed to include reservations that Japan has already conceded to Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia." She said the conditions for the concurrence were an "absolute necessity" because she is sure the Supreme Court would declare the Jpepa, ratified as is, unconstitutional. Then Japan could sue us since the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties provides that a party may not invoke internal, even constitutional law, as a defense for not honoring an international agreement. But why ratify even "conditionally" such an undeniably flawed agreement in the first place? The safest and most logical option is to reject it. .

(2) The Bilateral Free Trade Agreement that Mr. del Rosario wanted us to pursue during the 2002 APEC meeting in Mexico with the U.S., which he called a "pioneering initiative" and a "unique opportunity" missed, is neither pioneering nor unique. We had the onerous Bell Trade Agreement which the Philippine legislature ratified just two days before our independence. It required us to amend our Constitution to grant equal economic rights to Americans. With this Parity Amendment, we were treated like an American economic colony although we were already politically independent. This stunted our economic growth. We fought the Filipino-American War of 1898 before the Ameicans finally subjugated us. Are we now, going to surrender our sovereignty and grant the same parity rights under Jpepa Art. 89 to Japan, a former and unrepentant oppressor without a single shot being fired?

(3) Mr. Del Rosario's "reasonable assumption" showing full faith that "the provisions of the Jpepa were expertly negotiated in great detail by both sides " was sadly mistaken. The Philippine panel miserably failed in its sacred task of protecting our country's interests and could not even satisfactorily answer many basic questions, especially with regards to defects pointed out by the NGO panel, prompting an exasperated senator to ask, "why don't you do your homework like the NGO's?" When asked about the

outrageous provisions of Art.93, prohibiting the Philippines from demanding technology transfer and the hiring of Filipinos, not found in Japan's EPA's with other countries, the Philippine panel head replied: "I am stupefied.". The Executive Department officials failed to show to the Senate, Jpepa's economic benefits with their optimistic projections, expectations and misleading figures, mere speculations and forecasts not backed by solid evidence. The oppositors not only successfully refuted their arguments but also showed that they "wrongly and criminally" used a Japanese macroeconomic study to defend Jpepa. Was the voluminous Jpepa agreement "ready-made" by the Japanese too, and spoon-fed to the Philippine panel to make it "made-to-order" for Japan? This would explain why the panel seemed so clueless during the Senate Hearings (as the transcripts should bear out) about the agreement they were supposed to have negotiated. The bigger question is why was such a flawed bilateral agreement, made by such inept negotiators not rejected outright by the Senate?

(4) How can Philippine exports grow with Jpepa which allows our market to be our competitor in the use of our own production sources? Jpepa allows hi-tech Japanese factory ships to fish in our waters. Equipped with the latest in sonar technology to zoom in on the big catch and freezers that freeze fish in five seconds to ensure maximum freshness for storage while waiting for processing, packaging or canning right on site, ready for the international and even our very own local market in no time and at cheaper prices, what chance does our fishing industry have and what exports are we talking about? How about our poor fishermen who depend on the sea for livelihood and survival? Such injustice in our seas would be replicated in our forests and farmlands under Art. 89 of Jpepa. Furthermore, small and medium industries, the backbone of our economy, deprived of tariff protection and lacking government support systems, would inevitably die. Contrary to Mr. del Rosario's contention, the loss, not the creation of jobs, and the worsening of poverty would be the end result. Besides, how can Mr. del Rosario talk of job creation and fruitful partnerships when Jpepa expressly prohibits the Philippines from demanding technology transfer and the hiring of Filipinos?

(5) Mr. del Rosario says that " In a dialogue with the Japanese Embassy, it was established that the agreement fully advocates environmental protection…there has been no case whatsoever of Japanese toxic waste export to the Philippines since the Basel Convention of 1993." Wrong! First of all, Japan and the Philippines are not signatories to the later, mandatory Basel Ban on waste trading. Therefore, we cannot invoke it for protection. In July 1999, 122 forty-foot Japanese container vans reportedly carrying waste paper for recycling were opened in the port of Manila. They contained not waste paper for recycling but hazardous, toxic and infectious hospital waste. This was reported in the papers and the public outrage forced the Japanese government to repatriate their deceptively dumped waste. Moreover, an AP Tokyo, 1998 news report says: "Japan has a new export for the world-garbage. Export of hazardous materials is banned by international conventions. So businessmen are just calling it something else." Health and Welfare Ministry official Tatsuro Akashi confirmed this, saying "there is no objective definition to distinguish waste from goods". No wonder, Japan insisted on listing toxic waste as tradable goods entitled to preferential treatment with 0% tariff.

The Japanese use of personal connections as a means to advance its interests is disturbing. Dean Hideo Kobayashi, of the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University, in his book, "Postwar Japanese Economy in Southeast Asia" quotes Goto Noboru, vice president of the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry who dealt with economists and businessmen from the Philippines and other Asian countries, stating "the importance of personal connections in the development of foreign business." Japanese businessmen play a key role in their government's policy-making and Goto's view can be said to reflect such policy. Goto said: "close connections were useful in the expansion of the Tokyo group…only the financial people count, through the joint venture and overseas transfer of production base…" So, never mind the other stakeholders?

This means lavish wooing of trade and industry officials and business leaders of the targeted host country. The problem with using personal relations in national agreements is that such relations benefit only the decision makers courted, and not the nation they are supposed to uphold. Furthermore, the mention of "overseas transfer of production base" should make us wary. Japan, a small island state, is finding it harder to cope with the toxic waste generated by its high industrialization and could be expected to transfer its dirty industries to the Philippines.

International experts call Jpepa a "mega-treaty". It encompasses practically all aspects of our national life. Our Senators should not be stampeded into ratifying it with the threat of being "left behind". Which is the greater threat, being left behind in the rush to be swallowed up in the revival of Japan's expansionist "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" which triggered World War II, or waking up one day to find out that we no longer have a country to call our own, or worse, being left with an inhabitable wasteland which cannot sustain life?.

. The onset of Climate Change brought about by modern man's unsustainable development fuelled by globalization has shown the folly of the unbridled pursuit of such development paradigm. Our ecosystems are collapsing and the food, water and fuel crises that environmentalists have warned about are now upon us. In the scramble for scarce resources, our government must prioritize the security of the Filipino people. Conservation and wise use of resources are imperatives for survival and people development for the economic empowerment of communities a must for real development. The Jpepa is the antithesis of such imperatives. While the arguments for Jpepa are not based on facts but on shaky projections and expectations, the arguments against Jpepa are based on the strongest and most solid evidence, the text of the Jpepa agreement itself and its annexes and reservations. We earnestly urge those who want to know the truth to get hold of these and even the transcripts of the Senate hearings. Let the Jpepa, ill-conceived in the darkness of secrecy {even the Congressional party- list, Akbayan had to file a case in court to get a copy) be exposed to the clear light of truth and be subjected to stakeholder consultations and debates both in public fora and on the Senate floor, as such a crucial issue should be dealt with in a true democracy.

Ester V. Perez de Tagle is the founder of Concerned Citizens Against Pollution (COCAP). She was a member of congressional TWG's of several environmental bills that became law.

JPEPA makes no economic sense and must be junked

2008-05-12T15:03:00.005+08:00

Golda Benjamin, Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition
Maitet Diokno-Pascual, Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition
Dr. Leah Sumaco-Paquiz, Philippine Nurses Association
Marie Marciano, EcoWaste Coalition

Much has been said and written about the toxic and unconstitutional provisions in the proposed Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement. Such provisions alone are sufficient grounds for rejecting the JPEPA outright and working for it to be junked. The proposed agreement’s economic provisions are given less attention. As JPEPA is first and foremost an economic agreement, it is but right to focus on this aspect of the proposed agreement. What we see is a very lopsided agreement that heavily favors Japan, an economic power that doesn’t need JPEPA to bolster its already strong economic hold, especially vis-à-vis our country.

Simply go over the proposed Agreement and its Annexes page by page and you will see that the Philippine negotiators of Mrs. Arroyo gave away practically all of the Philippines to Japan, in exchange for virtually nothing. Is this a bad deal? Definitely. Is it better than No Deal? Definitely not. The best option, in fact the only option for the Senate and this government is to junk JPEPA.

A close scrutiny of JPEPA shows there is a clear imbalance of commitments, substantially favoring Japan, on tariff and non-tariff trade in goods, on the movement of natural persons, and on the Singapore issues,

LOPSIDED DEAL IN AGRICULTURE AND FISHERY

For example, in agriculture, only rice and five of its subheadings were excluded from the JPEPA by Mrs. Arroyo’s negotiators. No fish products were excluded; 46 of 114 tariff lines for fish products in the Philippine schedule will be duty free from year one.

Furthermore, tariffs on agricultural products that are not duty free from year one are much lower than the corresponding WTO bound rates . For instance, the base rate for various vegetables and fruits is 7%, much lower than their WTO bound rate of 40%. The base rates for fish products range from 3% to 10% which are far lower than the WTO bound rates of 30% to 40%.

Having given more away to Japan than Japan did to the Philippines, does the JPEPA nevertheless open the doors for our major agricultural exports? Not.

Japan excluded 197 sub-headings covering various agricultural products. Even dairy products, oranges, shiitake mushrooms—where we pose no threat to Japan’s local producers—remain protected in JPEPA. Consistent with its protection under WTO agreements, Japan kept away from JPEPA agricultural products excluded in the former, with very few exceptions. Less sensitive products have been placed under quota or deferred for market access negotiations in some indeterminate future. Non-sensitive agricultural products that are not excluded such as bananas (traditional export of the Philippines to Japan) will nevertheless have to wait five to 10 years before enjoying duty free access to Japanese markets. As a whole, agricultural products such as fresh asparagus and other fresh vegetables that Japan agreed to have duty free status in year one already enjoy very low duties of 3% and below. In effect, Japan gave nothing away of its agriculture and instead protected its agriculture in JPEPA.

Japan also maintained protection for its fishery sector. Of the 200 tariff lines for fish products in Japan’s JPEPA schedule, 59 are forever excluded from duty-free treatment; 15 are for deferred market access negotiations; 72 for phased tariff removal; and only 25 duty free from year one.

LOPSIDED DEAL IN INDUSTRY

Mrs. Arroyo’s JPEPA negotiators gave duty free entry from year one to a very long list of industrial products such as garments, refrigerators, air conditioners, dishwashers. Domestic industries such as automotive vehicles and their parts that could have benefited from some protection, at the very least through deferred market access negotiations under the JPEPA, were instead subjected to a tariff phaseout by the negotiators of Mrs. Arroyo.

Trade and industry sources say that Japan’s primary negotiating objective was the automotive industry. Mrs. Arroyo’s negotiators gave Japan what it wanted, at the expense of workers in the industry and other non-Japanese investors. In giving Japan its prized objective, did Mrs. Arroyo’s negotiators gain something in exchange? Not.

In JPEPA, the Philippines bound its applied MFN tariffs on industrial products at a level much lower than the WTO bound rates, using the former as the base rates for the phased tariff removal in the JPEPA. This is another giveaway, the first time the Philippines has done so in an international agreement outside the ASEAN. Did Mrs. Arroyo’s negotiators get a correspondingly heavy commitment from Japan in exchange for this giveaway? Not.

What did Japan give away? Nothing it already has: Industrial products already enjoy very low tariffs in Japan which are bound at the WTO. Products such as electronics and furniture are already duty free, so declaring them duty free entry under the JPEPA is meaningless. Japan imposes tariffs of 5% and above on a few manufactured products such as garments, made up textile articles and footwear. These have been given duty free entry from year one in the JPEPA. However, such products will enjoy duty free entry only if they comply with the rules of origin as provided in the JPEPA. That is, our garments exports to Japan must be made from raw materials such as fabrics that we ourselves produce, or that we import from ASEAN or Japan. Since the country’s textile industry is virtually non-existent, and since most of our garments are made from fabrics or threads from China or countries outside Japan or ASEAN, then
the duty free entry does not apply.

In effect, the little that Japan gives away through duty free access it takes back through the rules of origin under JPEPA. Given the imbalance of commitments, this will more likely result to more of Japan’s goods entering the Philippines duty free and less of Philippine goods enjoying duty free status for failing to comply with JPEPA’s rules of origin. Thus free trade under JPEPA is not free for Philippine industrial goods.

And this is called partnership?

UNDERMINING PHILIPPINE POSITION VIS-A-VIS MULTILATERAL TRADE ISSUES

Mrs. Arroyo’s negotiators gave away the country’s negotiating leverage in the WTO by agreeing to negotiate on the controversial Singapore issues without getting anything in return for doing so. Her negotiators were either unmindful of, or completely ignored the fact that on the subject of investments; apart from resisting its inclusion in the WTO agenda, the Philippines was among those calling for the following:

• disciplines on undesirable investor conduct such as Restrictive Business
Practices; bribery and illicit payments, destruction of the environment, among others;

• a firm development dimension in the form of specific as opposed to general flexibility clauses that would allow developing countries to continue imposing prohibited performance requirements such as technology transfer.

Whether due to sheer incompetence or gross insensitivity, Mrs. Arroyo’s negotiators are taking the Philippines several steps back in trade negotiations that many of us in civil society have severely criticized as flawed and biased. Rather than moving forward, Mrs. Arroyo’s JPEPA negotiators have pulled down the country’s negotiating position. Yes there is something worse than the WTO. It’s called JPEPA.

OVERSTATING THE BENEFIT TO NURSES

Mrs. Arroyo’s negotiators insist that they secured an excellent deal for our nurses, but they overlook the difficult bureaucratic, cultural and knowledge hurdles that Filipino nurses must overcome in order to practice their profession in Japan. Filipino nurses, in addition to being qualified under Philippine law and having had three years work experience, must have at least six months of language instruction in Japan and training supervised by a “Kangoshi” or Japanese nurse. In order to extend one’s stay as a nurse in Japan, the Filipino nurse must be a qualified kangoshi, that is, (s)he must have passed the qualifying examination (in Japanese) for kangoshi. Like other overseas Filipinos, nurses working abroad need to earn enough to recover the investments and repay the debts incurred in order to become a nurse and get the chance to work overseas. And yes, they must earn also to support their families left behind. Overcoming the cultural and knowledge hurdles may not be worth the time spent in queuing for a job as a kangoshi in Japan.

JPEPA is highly disadvantageous to the Philippine economy and its people. It must be junked, or the Philippines—and our children’s future— will be.

Citizens’ Groups Spurn Side Notes, Call for JPEPA Rejection Now

2008-05-07T13:03:00.005+08:00

5 May 2008, Pasay City. The planned exchange of diplomatic notes will not repair the injustice and irregularity innate to the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA). Rejecting the treaty now is pro-Filipino.

This is the unequivocal message of the EcoWaste Coalition and the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC) as they peaceably assemble outside the Senate of the Philippines to campaign for the rejection of JPEPA now, and thwart what they view as a dubious scheme to “fix” the constitutional, economic and other infirmities of the treaty with side notes between the governments of Japan and the Philippines.

To put their message across to the Senators and the public, the youth volunteers of the EcoWaste Coalition acted out the people’s anguish over the social, economic and environmental injustice coming out of the badly negotiated agreement and the inadequacy of the side notes to rectify the gross injustice.

Dressed in the colors of the Philippine flag, “Inang Katarungan” (Lady Justice) raised a symbolic scale of justice showing the uneven gains of the contracting states with Japan profiting heavily from JPEPA, a sad fact that a mere exchange of notes, stressed the protestors, cannot remedy.

“We seriously doubt if band-aid measures like the side notes can set right a discredited pact that has dismally failed to serve and protect the sovereign interests of the Filipino people, including our right to a just development and a toxic-free environment,” said Manny Calonzo of the EcoWaste Coalition and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.

According to Atty. Golda Benjamin, lead counsel of the MJCC, “We were generous even where we had cause to be stingy with the Japanese. Fish, crustaceans and mollusks are excluded from the WTO Uruguay Round commitments of member countries because developed countries refused to reduce their export subsidies especially those on fishing vessels. Despite this the Philippines still bound its tariffs at the WTO, albeit at very high rates. Japan did not.”

The MJJC complained that of the 200 tariff lines for fish products in Japan’s JPEPA schedule, 59 are forever excluded from duty-free treatment; 15 are for deferred market access negotiations; 72 for phased tariff removal; and, 25 duty free from year 1. Of the 114 in the Philippine schedule, 46 will enjoy duty-free treatment from year 1 while the remaining 68 are subject to phased tariff removal.

Both the EcoWaste Coalition and the MJJC denounced the evident deficiency of the side notes being crafted by the two governments to correct the economic inequities and what they described as “the ultimate form of a national sell-out that is extremely tilted to favor Japanese interests.”

“The approval of JPEPA in its current form will not only cause us to miss the boat but also to drown in a sea of negotiation mistakes. Two wrongs do not make one right. The only choice left for the Senate is the pro-Filipino choice: reject JPEPA now,” the groups asserted.

After the creative protest, the EcoWaste Coalition representatives trooped to the Senators’ offices to provide the lawmakers with the MJJC’s summary of the balance of commitments of the contracting parties that substantiate the groups’ vehement rejection of the lopsided treaty.

Among the groups represented in the latest peaceful protest against JPEPA were the Buklod Tao, Cavite Green Coalition, Concerned Citizens Against Pollution, EcoWaste Coalition, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment through Alternative Legal Services, Mascomthea, Mother Earth Foundation, Sagip Pasig Movement, Sanib-Lakas ng Inang Kalikasan and Zero Waste Philippines.

Playing with the Law, Fooling the People, Endangering the Nation

2008-05-07T12:50:00.003+08:00

Statement of the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition:

It is admitted by the Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) violates the Constitution. Several hearings prove that the JPEPA has many serious, dangerous, and onerous flaws. The logical and pro-Filipino choice should have been made a long time ago: JUNK JPEPA.

However, because of strong pressure from no less than President Arroyo herself, the Senate is now being pushed around to fix the problems of this treaty; to clean up a mess that this institution did not make. First, a conditional approval was suggested. However, strong opposition and doubts as to the legality of the move was registered by some senators and civil society groups, including the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC). In a surprising move, the proposal was withdrawn at the same convenient time that the Department of Foreign Affairs told the Senate to defer their vote so that it can now “fix the treaty.”

Unfortunately, like all band-aid measures, the proposed conditions or changes is limited in scope – it attempts to rectify one problem, un-Constitutionality, and leaving the other equally grievous problem of environmental degradation, de-industrialization, labor, displacement, migrant exploitation, and other such problems, unanswered. . The Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Trade and Commerce has also not asked the opinion of the other remaining senators as regards the conditions to be proposed. The current band-aid measures the Arroyo administration is patching is conveniently missing the following realities:

o that the JPEPA is the ultimate form of a national sell-out

o that the JPEPA is extremely tilted to favor Japanese interests

o that the JPEPA contains anti-Filipino and discriminatory provisions:
+ Unlike the rules in trade in goods and services, and in investment, the chapter on nurses does not provide for national and equal treatment among Japanese and Filipino nurses.
+ The JPEPA does not require Japan to commit that it will not discriminate against Filipino workers.

o that the JPEPA is unjust and oppressive
+ It protects more than 200 products of the highly advanced and rich country, Japan. It only protects 2 Philippine products.
+ Because Japan requested for it, the Philippines agreed to let Japanese own private lands for purposes other than those in the services and manufacturing sector. Not only is this unconstitutional; it is also highly unjust and oppressive to the Philippines’ own farmers who have long suffered and died to own the land that they have worked for and worked on since time immemorial.

o that the JPEPA throws away several Philippine policies that have been defended, promoted, and asserted for decades; both in the national and the international level
+ like the fight to demand developed countries to remove trade-distorting export subsidies so that foreign imported products will not slaughter the local products in terms of price

o that the JPEPA will result in more economic hardships for a greater number of Filipinos than benefits.

o that the proclaimed benefits from JPEPA are simply that: “proclaimed”

The proposed side notes will not fix these ills. The decision to delay the vote is an ultimate manifestation of the concerned committee’s surrender to the powers of the Executive Branch of government. The Senate’s job is straightforward: to approve or disapprove the treaty.Now, the entire body is being bullied into extending their own powers to yield to the wants of the Palace: all these efforts are now made after several months of the Executive Branch’s repeated claim that there is nothing wrong with the JPEPA and that this is an all-or-nothing deal that cannot be renegotiated.

It must be asked: What will the 21 remaining Senators do about this serious disrespect of procedure and the serious denial of their right to express their opinion about the JPEPA on the Senate floor?

This nation must not be pushed around with similar empty threats that were used when the government was pushing for the GATT/WTO. You will miss the boat: the ultimate mantra of the JPEPA pushers. We, the members of the Magkaisa JUNK JPEPA Coalition (MJJC), believe that the JPEPA, if approved, will not only cause us to miss the boat but also to drown in a sea of negotiation mistakes. . Two wrongs do not make one right.

The pro-Filipino choice for all of us is to JUNK JPEPA and to JUNK JPEPA NOW.

Groups Assail JPEPA as Anti-Filipino, Slam Conditional Concurrence as Compromise for Inequity

2008-04-29T10:44:00.003+08:00

28 April 2008, Pasay City, Philippines – Various people’s movements, all part of the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition, staged several activities today around the metropolis to signal what they call “Black Monday”; a day of action and outrage over the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA). Their activities were in anticipation of a Senate plenary deliberation on the proposed conditional concurrence resolution submitted by Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago, as Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee and Mar Roxas III, as Chair of the Committee on Trade and Commerce, which Sen. Santiago deferred late last week due to the opposition raised by various Senators.

As early as 6 a.m., more than 50 members of the MJJC congregated at the Welcome Rotunda in España Ave., raising the banner “Walang Ilusyon, Walang Kondisyon, JPEPA Di Solusyon!” At 10 a.m. members of the MJJC held a creative demonstration at the Quezon Memorial Circle, and protest activities culminated at around 2 p.m. in Pasay City, before the Senate gates, where at least 600 MJJC members congregated and held a three-hour vigil over the Senate proceedings as they begun deliberating on the proposed conditional concurrence for the ratification of JPEPA.

“The executive branch negotiated away the future of the Filipino people. By signing an unconstitutional and unfair treaty, the President sold the Philippines at a bargain without the people’s consent. These are the very acts that the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Trade and Commerce wish to nevertheless bless with a vote of approval,” stated the group in their formal statement.

The JPEPA was signed by Pres. Arroyo and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan back September 2006 in Finland. Ever since the treaty has been heavily criticized by a wide-swath of sectors from nurses, farmers, fisherfolks, environmentalists, labor, academia, public health groups, and even Japanese civil society groups have joined the fray.

Last week over 100 Japanese individuals and groups sent an e-mail letter to the Senate raising the concern of the Philippines receiving their toxic wastes, and acknowledging that “"The potential for job creation for the Philippine people under JPEPA, as argued by the Japanese and Philippine governments, will in reality be extremely small when compared with the jobs lost as a result of the destruction of Philippine industry and agriculture caused by JPEPA."

The MJJC has released various briefs on the JPEPA’s impact on nurses, the environment, constitutionality, labor, agriculture, and investments, and continues to expose how lopsided the JPEPA is in favor of the Japanese.

According to Atty. Golda Benjamin, lead counsel of the MJCC, “We were generous even where we had cause to be stingy with the Japanese. Fish, crustaceans and mollusks are excluded from the WTO Uruguay Round commitments of member countries because developed countries refused to reduce their export subsidies especially those on fishing vessels. Despite this the Philippines still bound its tariffs at the WTO, albeit at very high rates. Japan did not. Of the 200 tariff lines for fish products in Japan’s JPEPA schedule, 59 are forever excluded from duty-free treatment; 15 are for deferred market access negotiations; 72 for phased tariff removal; and, 25 duty free from year 1. Of the 114 in the Philippine schedule, 46 will enjoy duty-free treatment from year 1 while the remaining 68 are subject to phased tariff removal. Not a single fish escaped our net or was excluded.”

“The welfare of the Filipinos, our country, should never be compromised!” stressed Dr. Leah Paquiz, President of the Philippine Nurses Association, an MJJC partner. “The conditional concurrence that Senators Defensor-Santiago and Roxas are advocating is simply unacceptable to us. We need leaders who will pull all of us together, not abandon us one by one. The conditional concurrence only addresses an aspect of an atrocious treaty. Our leaders should stop putting band-aids on JPEPA, and simply put it to rest.”

For more details:
Atty. Golda Benjamin, Lead Counsel Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition, mobile: 0917 314 1016

Dr. Leah Paquiz, President, Philippine Nurses Association, mobile: 0917 852 0918

Japanese Groups Reject “Faulty” JPEPA, Call for “Partnership Based on Mutual Respect”

2008-04-22T13:57:00.002+08:00

20 April 2008, Quezon City. The controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) has attracted criticism and resistance not only among Filipinos, but also from Japanese as the Senate vote for the treaty nears.

In two separate petitions sent to the Senators of the 14th Congress, concerned Japanese citizens and citizens’ groups made a passionate plea for the rejection of the treaty, asserting that “the Philippines deserves a better and just deal from Japan.”

“JPEPA would establish a relationship between the Philippines and Japan that is completely opposite to our wish for equality and mutual respect between good-neighbors,” they said, warning further that “JPEPA can even become a barrier in the long-term friendship between the two countries.”

The Japanese petitioners lauded the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC) and other groups for putting up a strong opposition to JPEPA, saying that “they were right in condemning the secretive negotiations which did not benefit from informed public participation and for disclosing the bad effects of JPEPA to the economy, the environment and to Philippine sovereignty.”

The first letter was signed by over 90 individuals and 25 groups and transmitted to the Senators through the Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya (KPD), a member of the MJJC.

In his cover letter, Pete Pinlac, KPD Chair, told the senators that the Japanese took it upon themselves to express their misgiving about the “unequal” treaty, which the signatories denounce for its “inherent bias for the Japanese economy” to the detriment of genuine development, social justice and environmental integrity for the Filipinos.

“We believe that you, our elected Senators, possess enough good sense to recognize what is good for the many and not just for a few, and hope that you take to heart the points raised by our Japanese counterparts,” Pinlac said.

Echoing local opposition to contentious trade and economic pact, the Japanese opponents of JPEPA pointed out that the treaty will hurt Filipino companies, while providing advantages to Japanese business, in addition to the “possible export (of) Japanese pollution and waste to the Philippines.”

“The potential for job creation for the Philippine people under JPEPA, as argued by the Japanese and Philippine governments, will in reality be extremely small compared to the jobs lost as a result of the destruction of Philippine industry and agriculture caused by the JPEPA,” they emphasized.

The second letter was e-mailed directly to the Senators from Tokyo and signed by 24 groups.

“As Japanese grassroots groups working on agriculture, environment, public health, human rights, trade and consumer issues, we fear about the dire consequences if JPEPA is ratified, which lists toxic wastes, persistent organic pollutants, ozone depleting substances, among others, as "products" under JPEPA,” the second letter reads. “From our view, JPEPA will facilitate the practice of sending Japanese toxic wastes and other harmful substances into the Philippines in the name of free trade.”

“Since November 2006, we have released a number of statements urging the Japanese government to remove all provisions in JPEPA that liberalize trade in toxic wastes and other banned or controlled substances, but to no avail,” the groups lamented.

The Japanese petitioners asked the Senators to resist Japanese pressure to approve the “faulty agreement and to decide in favor of what is best for the Philippines.”

Senate Urged to Uphold People’s Interest vs JPEPA

2008-04-22T13:57:00.001+08:00

16 April 2008, Quezon City. The Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC) and former Vice-President Teofisto Guingona, Jr. rejected President Gloria Arroyo's latest pitch for Senate approval of the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).

In a joint statement, they questioned what President Arroyo said in her speech last Monday at the Yazaki-Torres factory in Calamba City regarding the P365 billion in direct investments and 200,000 jobs that would be generated if JPEPA is approved.

Guingona, an outspoken nationalist who was among the so-called "Magnificent 12" senators who voted in 1991 to end the RP-US military bases agreement, rallied the country's senators to resist the pressure to give their stamp of approval on the tarnished pact.

"The Senate should not be deceived by the specious benefits of JPEPA that are being peddled by President Arroyo and her adherents. The economic and financial gains that our country is supposed to reap once the treaty is ratified are purely speculative and lacking real merits as the proceedings of the Senate hearings would show," Guingona said.

"Japan's own study reveals that the Philippines is not a priority destination for Japanese investments, at least for the next three years, because of ‘inadequate infrastructure, an underdeveloped legal system and problems with legal operation,’ among others. JPEPA won't cure the reasons behind low foreign direct investments, but it will definitely be a grand-scale surrender of our rights as a sovereign people," he added.

Atty. Golda Benjamin, lead counsel of the MJJC, echoed Guingona's word of warning regarding the much-ballyhooed profits to be gained from JPEPA's ratification, stressing their hope that the Senate will assert its institutional independence and fight for the sovereign interests of the Filipino people.

"The President promises P365 billion in direct foreign investments from Japan if JPEPA is signed, something not found in the actual text of the treaty. Even if it was in the treaty, we now ask: is that the price for Filipinos to violate our own Constitution, to surrender our lands and seas, and even surrender the lawmaking powers of Congress? If the President answers yes to that question, we hope the Senate is brave enough to go against it. Surely, this nation deserves leaders who can say no to the illegal sale of Filipinos and their rights," Benjamin said.

Guingona and Benjamin cited the recently released results of the 2007 survey on the international operations of Japanese companies by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), a government related agency, which ranked the Philippines as last among 18 Japanese investment destinations. The same survey showed the country as among the top five places where there are many risks of doing business.

Last week, the MJJC met at the University of the Philippines to plan for a more vigorous campaign against the ratification of JPEPA, which they condemned as "a greater bitter poison for the public to stomach" compared to the outrageous NBN-ZTE deal.

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago had earlier said that the committee report will be released on April 28. As of today, the date for the voting has not been announced. For the JPEPA to pass, 16 affirmative or yes votes are required.

Citizens’ Coalition Vows to Escalate Action against JPEPA

2008-04-22T13:56:00.001+08:00

10 April 2008, Quezon City - Two weeks before the scheduled release of the committee report on the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), members of the church, the academe, and more than 25 civil society organizations gathered at the University of the Philippines-Diliman to discuss their plans towards an escalation of actions against the JPEPA.

The groups present are members and supporters of the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC), broad coalition that has, for two years, vigorously exposed the lopsided and unconstitutional features of the treaty and campaigned against its ratification by the Senate at the public hearings and various protest assemblies.

“We continue to closely monitor each and every Senator’s move on the JPEPA. Giving away of Philippine land, allowing discriminatory treatment for Filipino nurses, formalizing trade and dumping of toxic waste, and opening up our seas to foreigners, these are very serious violations of law. A senator who says yes to these provisions must be held accountable, together with the Chief Executive of this country who consistently bargains away the freedom, resources, and sovereignty of this country,” expressed Golda Benjamin, lead counsel of the Coalition.

JPEPA opponents also raised their concern as regards some senators’ proposal for a conditional concurrence on the treaty.

“Some senators are supposedly working to “fix” the problems in the JPEPA. However, members of the negotiating team keep on saying that this is an all-or-nothing deal that cannot be renegotiated. If the Executive Branch is doing nothing to fix the JPEPA, why are the Senators now trying to clean up the mess of the Executive Branch when their power is simply to approve or reject the treaty?” asked Marie Marciano, representative of the EcoWaste Coalition, a member group of the MJJC.

The participants, mostly coming from sectors that will be adversely impacted by JPEPA, signed an open letter to the Senators warning them that ratifying JPEPA in the midst of major corruption scandals will not go unnoticed.

“With the NBN-ZTE now in the public mind, with the concession of the Spratlys nipping at its heel, the ratification of the JPEPA will be a greater bitter poison for the public to stomach. The ramifications are even graver with JPEPA since it is more than just a business deal. The treaty if ratified becomes a law of the land. If the Senate does ratify it, the question becomes who are watching the watchers?” their letter to the Senators said.

“The Arroyo administration is marked with a litany of anomalous agreements entered into at great cost and detriment to the Filipino people. The year 2010 is not far away. We, the Filipino people will remember and distinguish the traitors from the patriotic,” they stated.

The MJJC has revealed its plan to strengthen their campaign and to continue its information drives all over the country. The Coalition is also prepared to support legal actions before the Supreme Court to question the constitutionality of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement.

Among the MJJC partner groups are the Alliance of Progressive Labor, Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines - Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Commission, EcoWaste Coalition, Freedom from Debt Coalition, Green Convergence for Safe Food, Healthy Environment and Sustainable Economy, Kilusang Makabansang Ekonomiya, Kilusang Mangingisda, Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya, Philippine Nurses Association and the Task Force Food Sovereignty.

The ultimate treason

2008-04-22T13:00:00.002+08:00

A commentary from the Philippine Daily Inquirer, published last April 14, 2008 (original link here).

The ultimate treason
By Ester V. Perez de Tagle

MANILA, Philippines - When theSpratlys exploration deal was linked to the NBN project and other mega-projects, the web of corruption was exposed to have a more serious dimension—treason by sellout.

But hidden in the voluminous pages of another but bigger agreement is the mother of all sellouts: the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (Jpepa). Once ratified, it will beget other similar EPAs; other countries would understandably want to get the same terms as Japan. Who would not want to enjoy equal rights with Filipinos to exploit the land and waters of an internationally recognized natural resources superstar and center of global marine biodiversity?

There is no need to dig up damning evidence of the sellout from other documents or to extract it from witnesses. It is right there, in its text.

Loss of Philippine sovereignty. The Jpepa tramples on our Constitution and other laws and the people’s constitutional right to participate in economic decision-making. It usurps the legislature’s constitutional power to exercise authority over commerce and trade. An example is the unilateral elimination of tariff protection within 11 years. This would result in the much-increased inflow of aggressively priced Japanese goods, thereby killing the backbone of our economy—our small and medium industries, which are already suffering from government neglect. Massive unemployment would follow.

The Jpepa also usurps the constitutional power of our local government units (LGUs) to enjoy local autonomy, including the power to create their own revenue sources. Future legislation relating to investments will no longer be possible with the minimal and wrong reservations or exemptions the Philippine panel made and Japan’s various extensive reservations to protect its interests.

The Philippine panel also agreed to remove the phrase in previous Philippine bilateral investment agreements that allow for national legislative flexibility on “investments … made in accordance with the legislation of that contracting state.” The Jpepa is thus beyond the reach of Philippine legislation, present or future.

It even plans to “examine the possibility of amending or repealing laws and regulations that pertain to, or affect the implementation and operation of this agreement.” (Art. 4) Philippine laws exist for the good of our people but would be amended or repealed to accommodate the Jpepa.

National Treatment (Art. 89) accords the Japanese investors equal rights as Filipinos in the exploitation of our natural resources. It would be open season for our priceless flora and fauna, with Japan getting the first shot! How ironic, considering that it never apologized for the atrocities it committed against our people during World War II. Worse, Japan’s comprehensive reservations and our lack of the same make this provision nonreciprocal.

Annex 7, 2B of Jpepa would allow Japanese large-scale fishing in our already badly depleted seas. With economies of scale, their hi-tech factory ships would enjoy unfair competitive advantage over our poorly equipped fishing boats. Who would buy our products? The same could happen to our agriculture and agro-forestry. The plight of the Sumilao farmers would be replicated many times over. Much of our limited land and water, which should be used to plant food crops, could be used by the Japanese to plant biofuel feedstock for their energy needs, thus endangering our food and water security. Forest destruction would worsen. The Jpepa would legitimize biopiracy. Protected by Art. 90, the Japanese could patent their manufacturing processes to prevent us from commercially using our own bio-resources. Jpepa provides neither sufficient safeguards to protect our country’s rich bio-resources nor provisions on access and benefit-sharing.

Japan, a small island state, cannot cope with the toxic waste generated by its high industrialization. An AP Tokyo 1998 news report says “Japan has a new export for the world—garbage. Export of hazardous materials is banned by international conventions. So, businessmen are just calling it something else.” Health and welfare ministry official Tatsuro Akashi confirmed this, saying “There is no objective definition to distinguish waste from goods.” In the Jpepa Tariff Lines, waste is entitled to preferential treatment and granted a tariff rate of 0 percent. Another threat is that Japan, to avoid the toxic and hazardous waste generated by its many dirty industries, may relocate these in the Philippines.

Articles 95 and 96 not only give the Japanese more rights than Filipinos, they also open our government to multimillion-dollar suits. Article 93 prohibits the Philippines from imposing on Japanese investments any technology transfer and any hiring of Filipinos. The Japanese do not impose these in their treaties with other countries. So, what benefits do our people get from the Jpepa? Even our nurses, supposedly among its biggest beneficiaries, reject it. Philippine Nurses Association president Leah Paquiz wrote a paper against it. Decent, fair-minded Japanese, like Japan’s Christian pastors, decry its great injustice to the Filipino people.

The Jpepa shows what happens when the greed for wealth and power blinds governments to what is right and turns them into predators. But the worst predators are those who turn against their own land and people.

Ester V. Perez de Tagle is the founder of Concerned Citizens Against Pollution (Cocap). She was a member of the congressional TWGs of several environmental bills that became law.

NGO hits Roxas, Santiago for endorsing JPEPA

2008-03-28T14:34:00.001+08:00

From GMA News:

DAVAO CITY, Philippines - A Mindanao-based coalition of non-government organizations has criticized senators Manuel Roxas II and Miriam Defensor-Santiago for recommending the ratification of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).

Members of the Mindanao Ayaw sa JPEPA Coalition oppose the proposed Japan-RP treaty which they consider as flawed and unfair.

Under economic treaty, Japanese multinational corporations are given full right to invest in crop production, fishery, mining and the power sector, said Abby Pato of the Integrated Rural Development Foundation of the Philippines, a member of the coalition.

He said that such arrangement would have great impact on the livelihood of small farmers and fisher folk in Mindanao.

The coalition is urging the Davao City council to pass a resolution supporting moves against the JPEPA.

At a city council hearing, the group asked councilor and Trade Committee Chair Pete Laviña to conduct an investigation on the impact of JPEPA on the Mindanao economy, Pato said.

He said that the proposed trade pact might have disastrous impact not only on food security but also on Mindanaoans' access to and use of land, water, seed and other productive resources.

Under the JPEPA, huge tracks of land would be put under the control of transnational and agro-business ventures, he added.

Pato feared that the increasing global demand for bananas would further fuel the expansion of banana plantations which encourage widespread use of pesticides that are hazardous to people and environment.

JPEPA could displace small producers and fish workers in the tuna industry with the onslaught of Japanese firms, he said.

He added that JPEPA might also pose health hazards as dumping of Japan's toxic waste in the country (in the guise of recyclable or with recyclable content) would be allowed. - GMANews.TV

Green Groups Laud Jamby and Pia for their Unbending Stance versus JPEPA, Call on Other Senators to Show their True Colors

2008-02-22T08:37:00.001+08:00

22 February 2008, Quezon City. Various green groups laud Sen. Pia Cayetano and Sen. Jamby Madrigal for their stance to uphold what is good for the people and the environment as they reiterate their opposition to the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement(JPEPA).

“We find the recent statements on JPEPA by Sen. Cayetano and Sen. Madrigal very reassuring as we consider them as voices of Mother Nature in the Senate,” said Dr. Angelina Galang of the Green Convergence for Safe Food, Healthy Environment and Sustainable Economy, adding that “the voting on JPEPA will be a grand revelation of who among the senators are true patriots who have the well-being of the people and country at heart and others whose mindsets contribute to the continued destruction of the environment.”

“We are at a point in the history of our country where we are searching for courageous women and men who would stand up for our ailing environment. Both senators have shown that they can lead this battle,” Beau Baconguis of Greenpeace Southeast Asia said. Atty. Mimi Sison of the Green Initiatives, Inc. agreed, saying that “these two women legislators are the true patriotic leaders that our country sorely needs.”

“Sen. Cayetano and Sen. Madrigal have shown their true color and happily for the country and our devastated environment, it is green. We hope all other senators, especially those who have trumpeted a green platform will likewise show their sincerity and the courage of their conviction, as Pia and Jamby have admirably done,” said Marie Marciano of the EcoWaste Coalition and Mother Earth Foundation.

For his part, Atty. Richard Gutierrez of the Basel Action Network-Asia Pacific said: “Their defiant no to JPEPA is a patriotic yes for the Filipinos and the environment. We laud their courage and foresight for making this stand.”

“We challenge the other senators to follow the lady senators’ lead,” they stated.

Environmental groups such as the Bangon Kalikasan Movement, Basel Action Network, Cavite Green Coalition, Concerned Citizens Against Pollution, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Green Convergence, Green Initiatives Inc., Greenpeace, EcoWaste Coalition, Miriam College Environmental Studies Institute, Health Care Without Harm, Kalikasan-PNE, Mother Earth Foundation, Mother Earth Philippines, Partido Kalikasan, Philippine Greens, and Sanib Lakas ng Inang Kalikasan have questioned the inclusion of a long list of toxic, hazardous and radioactive wastes and materials at zero tariff under JPEPA.

In an interview last Wednesday by the Senate media, Cayetano, who chairs the
committee on environment and natural resources, described JPEPA as “lousily negotiated,” criticizing negotiators for failing to assert and integrate measures that will safeguard the country’s environmental as well as trade interests.

“I feel strongly about the fact that there's a lot at stake, why didn't the negotiators think of that when they were negotiating it and ensure that we got the best out of it so we don't feel like being thrown some leftovers,’ Cayetano said.

Madrigal, in a statement circulated at the last Kamayan Forum on the environment, said that she will “not acquiesce to a treaty that undermines the sovereignty of the republic, sponsors the plunder of foreign and local exploiters, and the abuse and destruction of the environment.”

Environmentalists Ask Pro-Environment Senators to Reject “Toxic” Treaty

2008-02-22T08:25:00.003+08:00

21 February 2008, Quezon City. Concerned citizens for public health and environmental justice called on the country’s 23 Senators to cross party lines and uphold the much larger national interest by rejecting the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).

The prospects of crafting side agreements and safety nets to cure the infirmities of the treaty failed to assuage the concerns of the public interest groups attending the General Assembly of the EcoWaste Coalition Wednesday at the University of the Philippines who again asked the Senators not to ratify the controversial treaty.
To stress their point, the environmentalists mounted a tableau showing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Environment Secretary Joselito Atienza on top a crate of “toxic cargoes” marked “Express Delivery: Toxic JPEPA,” while EcoWaste Coalition volunteers, their faces painted with colors of the Philippine flag, hold a placard that says “Bawal Magtapon Dito.”

“Most especially, we earnestly appeal to our senators whose legislative and public service agenda proclaim concern for the environment and public health to demonstrate their sincerity by firmly rejecting this toxic treaty,” said Marie Marciano of the Mother Earth Foundation, member of the EcoWaste Coalition’s Steering Committee.

Senators Manny Villar, Pia Cayetano, Chiz Escudero, Gringo Honasan, Ping Lacson, Loren Legarda, Jamby Madrigal, Kiko Pangilinan, Nene Pimentel and Migz Zubiri are some of the Senate members known for speaking out and for filing bills and resolutions on a broad range of environmental and health issues.

“We implore our senators to carefully scrutinize the treaty and have the courage to cross party lines when they cast their votes on JPEPA. This critical time will separate the chafe from the grain among our senators before the watchful eyes of the Filipino people,” said Marciano, adding that “the historic moment calls for principled statesmen who will uphold and protect the broad national interest against the narrow self-serving interests of a few business and political groupings.”

Last 15 February, Sen. Madrigal said “I shall not acquiesce to a treaty that undermines the sovereignty of the republic, sponsors the plunder of foreign and local exploiters, and the abuse and destruction of the environment.”

The EcoWaste Coalition and other environmental groups also urged the Senate to act on the proposal made by Sen. Pia Cayetano regarding the need for “a more definite and legally binding act” to ensure that the Philippines does not become a toxic dumpsite for other people’s refuse.

Sen. Pia Cayetano had earlier said that "ratifying the Basel Ban Amendment would provide greater protection to the Philippines from becoming a dumping ground for toxic wastes, not only from Japan, but also from other industrial countries."

According to the EcoWaste Coalition, the exchange of notes, the side agreements and the safety nets bandied about by the JPEPA proponents are a devious sleight-of-hand designed to draw away the senators’ attention from the glaring faults of a badly-negotiated treaty that lays our country wide open to toxic waste dumping, economic exploitation, and loss of
sovereignty.

While the validity, legality and implementability of these ‘band-aid’ instruments are highly questionable, the ‘sell-out’ provisions and constitutional infirmities of the treaty, once ratified by the senate, become legally and unquestionably binding, observed the group.

A report on JPEPA and toxic waste issues by the Basel Action Network, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives and the EcoWaste Coalition questioned the sanity of opening the country’s ports to a long list of toxic, hazardous and radioactive wastes and materials at zero tariff given the country’s lack of capacity to monitor and safely handle, store and treat these extremely harmful substances.

“It is painfully obvious that we are on the losing end of this new treaty with the Japanese government. We do not have the resources to cope with such a curse disguised as a windfall. The financial, health, and environmental costs are too high to pay for only a few years’ gain for some,” they said.

Statement by the Task Force Food Sovereignty

2008-01-25T19:24:00.000+08:00

The Task Force Food Sovereignty (TFFS)* strongly condemns the recommendation of Senators Mar Roxas and Miriam Defensor-Santiago to ratify the highly flawed and unequal Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA). Inspite of the strong Constitutional and legal arguments against JPEPA and the studies of various groups that will be affected negatively by the agreement, the two Senators chose to hear out and favor the position of Japanese monopoly capital, the Philippine big business and the Arroyo administration.

JPEPA is a blatant surrender of the country's sovereignty. It wrests away from the Philippine government the sovereign right to decide on national and local policies and legislation. JPEPA also violates the Constitutional restrictions on foreign ownership and activities in key areas of our economy including our national patrimony. It allows the full entry of Japanese multinational companies in crop plantations, fishery, mining, power, etc, depriving the Filipinos the prior right and access to their land and other productive resources.

The losses depicted by Senator Roxas, if the Senate rejects JPEPA, are purely speculative. Japanese foreign direct investments have poured into the country even without JPEPA. However, much of these investments only went to import-dependent assembly factories like those in the electronics and automobile parts industries and increased the profits of Japanese firms, but have very limited contribution to strengthening the country's manufacturing base.

Further, Senator Roxas' fears that the Philippines will be left out from the bandwagon of free trade again are the same arguments put forward by then Senators Angara and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when they ratified the country's membership to the World Trade Organization. But after more than a decade, the WTO has not created the huge markets and the employment increases it promised. Even the trumpeted gains of the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA) are nowhere to be seen, as intra-regional trade expanded very little in the last three decades.

Even Senator Roxas conceded that the trade benefits from JPEPA are minimal. At present, about 83% of the value of total Philippine exports to Japan already enjoys zero duty, of which 82.13% are industrial products and only 0.84% agricultural. Upon JPEPA's enforcement, only an added 6% of the current total value of Philippine exports to Japan (that are not zero duty) will be opened up, bringing to 89% the share in total exports under duty free status. Only 1% of the 6% miniscule gain comes from agriculture. Almost all of the 11% of the value of exports that were not granted duty free but merely given some token reduction of tariffs are in agriculture!

This is an outcome of a highly unequal agreement borne out of opportunistic and un-transparent negotiations. JPEPA gave the Japanese the leeway to protect more than 200 of its agriculture tariff lines but reduced starkly the Philippine policy space when our government merely exempted two products from tariff elimination.

Moreover, JPEPA failed to reduce the stringent sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures employed by Japan to discriminate against Philippine agriculture exports, thus, rendering inutile whatever market access the Philippine government has negotiated.

Clearly, the odds are stacked against the claimed benefits. Much of the gains are imaginary, but the losses are real in terms of job displacement, loss of sovereignty and policy space, worsened poverty for rural people who will be driven away from their land and natural resources, and environmental destruction resulting from increased dumping of toxic wastes and mineral extraction.

Thus, we appeal to the Philippine Senate to seriously consider the major losses our country and our people will incur from JPEPA, particularly the poor Filipino farmers and fishers, who comprise the bulk of our agriculture producers:

1. The miniscule market access gained in agriculture, if any, is found in the high value export crop sector which is dominated by large firms affiliated to Japanese multinationals such as those in banana, pineapple, mango, asparagus, etc. This means drawing away limited government support in agriculture to these crops, again depriving the millions of rice, corn and coconut farmers many of whom are into
subsistence farming the needed financial, technical and infrastructure support.

2. Filipino artisanal fishers as well as small handliners will face undue competition if and when cheapened marine and fishery imports from Japan come in as a result of the reduction and elimination of tariffs on such products like yellow fin tuna, mackerel, milkfish or lapu-lapu fry, squid, shrimp that will come in at zero duty upon JPEPA's enforcement. Japan is highly competitive in marine and fishery sector, owing to its modern fishing fleets and advanced technology.

3. JPEPA allows unrestricted Japanese investments including equal rights with Filipino nationals in owning agricultural lands and in exploiting the country's natural resources particularly marine resources and those found under the continental shelf. It will not not only violate the Philippine Constitution but it will also exacerbate landlessness, inequality and poverty in the country.

4. Rural industrialization will be stunted as Japanese processed agricultural and semi-agricultural products will enter the domestic market with zero or reduced tariffs, thereby creating disincentives for small and medium-scale enterprises. Moreover, Japanese investments in this area are already competing with domestic firms with limited capital and relying on backward technology.

5. Since JPEPA is a template for free trade agreements, there is no stopping other developed countries such as the US and the EU, whose agricultural exports are several times bigger than that of Japan, to negotiate the same trade preferences that the Philippine government inked out with Japan, invoking the most favored nation treatment. Since all Philippine agriculture tariffs are already committed to zero, except for rice and salt, what then is left to protect our small-scale producers
from these heavy agriculture subsidizers?

We call on our Senators to heed the call of the people, particularly those who have been unduly disadvantaged by our external trade policies and our continued kowtowing to foreign interests. Besides the impact on rural livelihoods, small and medium-sized enterprises and the environment, JPEPA will also stunt, if not totally demolish, the long-term development and industrialization of the Philippines.

By opening up all areas of the economy to Japanese investments and removing all performance requirements imposed on Japanese investors under present laws, the country will be seriously constrained to direct and regulate foreign investments in accordance with its development priorities.

In the light of the dismal failure of globalization to lift the Filipino poor from poverty and hunger and in the light of an impending global economic recession, blind reliance on free trade and the global market is certainly not the answer to our domestic problems. We urge our honorable Senators to instead hear out the sentiments of our small farmers, municipal fishers, indigenous peoples, and other rural poor sectors whose livelihoods, land, and water resources may be put into peril by this
agreement.

Reference: Ms Arze Glipo - 925-0987

Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition Says JPEPA Incurable Of Defects

2007-11-27T19:11:00.000+08:00

An activist from the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition dressed as Inang Bayan painted big red “X” marks on an oversized JPEPA report card, giving the flawed agreement a final grade of “FAILED” for its dismal failure to put the welfare of the Filipino people before its rosy promises and so-called profits. (Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.)

Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition Says JPEPA Incurable Of Defects

November 23, 2007. Pasay City —Converging today at the Senate for another hearing on the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition asserted that the agreement's flaws are fatal and cannot be cured simply by a supplemental agreement.

Various environmental, labor and other civil society groups belonging to the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition were at the Senate this morning to raise their objection to another contentious scheme, as reported by Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Malacanang Palace and the Japanese Embassy in Manila, to craft a supplemental agreement to rescue JPEPA from impending rejection by the Senate. The Coalition is contesting the feasibility of a supplemental agreement to remedy the defects of the JPEPA.

“Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that the JPEPA’s constitutional flaws could be corrected by such a supplemental agreement, what will happen to the other equally important issues that need to be solved?" asked Manny Calonzo of the EcoWaste Coalition, a member group of the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition. "Will the supplemental agreement substantially address issues such as Japanese protectionism with regard to agricultural products from the Philippines, the dumping of Japanese toxic wastes and cast-offs in the country or the second-class treatment of our nurses in Japan? No side agreement will cure JPEPA of its inherent defects.”

Civil society groups also contested the legality of the proposed side agreement, saying that it is unethical and illegal to allow the same people who are supposed to ratify or reject the treaty to craft a means of salvaging it.

”It is not the Senate’s job to draft a side agreement that will allow them to ratify this treaty,” said Atty. Mimi Sison of the Green Initiatives Inc., another Coalition member. “The Senate's duty, given the well-known policy flaws and legal infirmities of the JPEPA aired during the Senate hearings, is to reject the agreement and let the Executive renegotiate it in an open and transparent manner with civil society participation.”

During previous hearings the JPEPA came under fire from previous sectors, exasperating Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, who at one point said she would "go up in flames" if she had to defend the JPEPA on the Senate floor.

The Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition is apprehensive that Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago now appears to be trying to find ways to push this atrocious treaty through after all the pronouncements she made to the contrary in previous hearings. The Coalition pointed out that the Executive branch of government cannot negligently negotiate important preferential trade agreements like the JPEPA and expect the Senate to tidy up the mess afterwards every time.

Ilibing ang JPEPA! Ibangon ang Pilipinas!

2007-11-08T20:12:00.000+08:00

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.

Ilibing ang JPEPA! Ibangon ang Pilipinas!
Civil society groups call on the Senate to bury the treaty

08 November 2007. Manila, Philippines. – A crowd of more than 300 workers, farmers, urban poor and environmentalists from the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC) today called on the Philippine Senate to bury the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) following the government panel’s inability to defend it in the past five Senate hearings on the issues. The Senate conducted its sixth hearing on the treaty today, focusing on the issues surrounding trade in goods and agriculture.

The MJJC, a broad network of civil society groups whose constituents come from sectors that would be most affected by the JPEPA, set up a tableau composed of a number of tombstones for JPEPA and a wreath along with a Grim Reaper at the Senate grounds, and called for the Senate to bring the JPEPA to its final resting place.

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.
“The Senate needs to bury all the lies and representations of the pro-JPEPA panel six feet underground,” said Marie Marciano, steering committee member of the EcoWaste Coalition, a member of the MJJC. “Government officials have been trumpeting the supposed gains that the country will get under this atrocious treaty ad nauseaum through paid newspaper ads, but could not, in fact, prove any of them in all of the hearings that the Senate has so far conducted. It is clear that the JPEPA is in its death throes. Our senators should lay it to rest.”

In the past five hearings, the coalition had unquestionably established and proven that the JPEPA’s textual provisions are detrimental to Philippine national interest, consistently showing the treaty’s lopsidedness by comparing it with Japan's Economic Partnership Agreements with other ASEAN countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

“This is really a hideous and horrific deal for the Philippines. It deserves nothing less than a complete rejection from the Philippine Senate,” said Atty. Golda Benjamin, lead counsel for the coalition. “We could have gotten a much better deal had our negotiators not been sleeping on the job. Clearly, after all this time, our negotiators still have not done their homework. Throughout all the five hearings, pro-JPEPA officials could not answer even the most basic questions from the Senators on the benefits of the treaty.”

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.
In their public pronouncements, Committee for Foreign Relations Chair Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago and Vice-chair Senator Mar Roxas expressed their incredulity and disbelief at the outlandish claims of economic benefit and job generation that were being made by JPEPA proponents. Sen. Santiago was quoted as saying that if the government panel could not defend the treaty, then “the JPEPA would be dead.[i]” The senators even praised the oppositors from the MJJC, saying that the Junk JPEPA advocates had established their case with well-reasoned arguments, and with concrete and indisputable evidence.

In today's additional hearing on Trade in Goods and Agriculture, the oppositors from MJJC put forth additional proof to debunk the oft-repeated and hollow claim by JPEPA proponents that the treaty will boost outputs in Philippine agriculture and lead to a boom in exports that will benefit small farmers and fishers, citing the government’s claims that the elimination of tariffs will result in a free flow of agricultural imports and exports between the two countries.

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.
“Zero tariffs will not be imposed on all our agricultural products to Japan. Japan’s agriculture representatives were clear during the negotiation process that tariff elimination is not their priority,” said Atty. Benjamin.

Aside from not agreeing to zero tariffs for most of the agricultural products from the Philippines, Japan has also excluded more than 200 agricultural items in their commitment to liberalization.

“They wanted to protect their own local industries,” Atty. Benjamin continued. “Japan is actually being very protective of its agricultural industry. That is why they agreed to the other countries' commitment to eliminate tariffs only after 10 years; by that time, they would be highly competitive in terms of price and quality.”

“The dangers of the JPEPA are not the creations of Japan, these are products of our negotiators' failure to ensure that the Filipino people get the deal we deserve,” concluded Atty. Benjamin. “The pro-JPEPA panel insists that if we do not sign this treaty, we will miss the boat. Unfortunately, the JPEPA in its current form will cause the Filipino people not only to miss the boat but also drown in the sea of negotiation mistakes.”

*END*

More photos:

All photos by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.

[i]“ Santiago sees 'dead' JPEPA if gov't won't explain benefits,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, 20 September 2007. See also “Santiago agrees with legal experts’ opinion on Japan treaty,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, 09 October 2007. To wit, “’Virtually, if we go by the objective analysis of these independent experts, the JPEPA is dead. JPEPA is unconstitutional in several constitutional grounds, and then they went on to explain which ones of these provisions are, and why they adversely impact the validity of the JPEPA,’ Santiago said.”

Champion the Interest of Filipinos!

2007-11-08T19:49:00.000+08:00

Photo by Marnie Dolera/GAIA.

Champion the Interest of Filipinos!
Calls for Senators to Junk JPEPA Resume

November 6, 2007. Manila, Philippines. A day after the Senate opened its doors for business from a three-week recess, representatives of the multi-sectoral civil society group Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC) were back at the Senate gates renewing their call for the Senators to junk the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).

Nine members of MJJC were dressed in black and were each holding a picture of a faceless individual with a question mark on it representing the nine members of the Philippine Senate needed to reject the treaty. Flanked by representatives of the different sectors that would be most affected by the JPEPA, the MJJC representatives waved their banner with the challenge “Junk JPEPA 5-0: Who will champion the Filipinos?”

“In all five senate hearings, the Philippine and Japanese governments and the business sector have failed to convince the Senate on the merits of the JPEPA,” stated Ms. Beau Baconguis, Toxics Campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia -- Philippines, a member of the MJJC. “They have not debunked the arguments on toxic trade. They could not even provide concrete evidence of economic and investment benefits to sway the Senators who were present at the hearing”, stated Baconguis.

“The Senators saw that there is nothing in JPEPA that will benefit the Filipinos,” continued Ms. Baconguis. “Now they have all the reasons to reject JPEPA. We urge the Senators to step up to the plate and be the Filipinos’ champions against JPEPA.”

For over a month, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations -- chaired by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago and co-chaired by Sen. Mar Roxas, head of the Committee on Trade -- conducted several hearings on the JPEPA. The hearings were focused on five initial issues: the economic impacts of JPEPA, investments, the environment, the movement of natural persons, and the constitutionality of the treaty. At all five hearings the Senators present expressed their dismay and frustration over the government’s ineptitude in proving the alleged economic and social benefits that the JPEPA will bring.

In stark contrast, the oppositors to the JPEPA not only exposed the misleading numbers and information provided by the government panel led by DTI Undersecretary Tomas Aquino, they also showed how the Philippine negotiating panel failed to obtain the best possible deal in comparison to the agreements Japan signed with Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

“For the past couple of weeks, paid ads have been littering newspapers promoting the misleading statements put forward by the proponents of JPEPA, which the Senators themselves did not believe!” exclaimed Mr. Edwin Bustillos, Deputy Secretary General of the Alliance for Progressive Labor, member of the MJJC.

The MJJC was also able to demonstrate the width and breadth of the sectors opposing the treaty. The Philippine Nurses Association, the supposed main beneficiary of the JPEPA, belied the rosy claims of the government, saying that the Philippine negotiating panel did not adequately protect the interests of our nurses who are the best in the world. The overseas recruiters also considered the JPEPA a bad deal citing the language requirement for Filipinos who wish to work in Japan as a main hindrance.

Automotive workers from Japanese companies such as Toyota and Honda also raised their voices against JPEPA because of the threat of de-industrialization of the Philippine auto industry. They also rallied against the negative safety and environmental impacts of the tsunami of Japanese second-hand cars flooding the local market. Local and international environmental groups further joined the opposition line-up, citing factual data of Japan dumping toxic wastes in Asian countries in the guise of recyclables, and how Japan will likely do the same to the Philippines using the JPEPA.

The most stinging opposition voices against JPEPA, however, came from an international trade expert and from a distinguished member of the legal academe. Former chairman of the World Trade Organization appellate body and renowned international trade law expert, retired Philippine Supreme Court Justice Florentino P. Feliciano, and former dean of the UP College of Law, Professor Merlin Magallona, both did not mince words in declaring that the JPEPA violates the Philippine Constitution on various grounds. Speaking to the press after the testimony of Feliciano and Magallona, Senator Santiago conceded that “if we go by the objective analysis of these independent experts, the JPEPA is dead.”[1]

Two more hearings are scheduled for the JPEPA, one focusing on agriculture and the other on trade. The hearings are expected to be finished early November. A Senate vote on the JPEPA, to ratify or reject, may follow immediately thereafter.

“Now that the hearings will soon come to a close, Filipinos are asking the questions, who will defend us against JPEPA? Who will be our Champion?” stated Mr. Bustillos. “We have faith in the independence and wisdom of the Senate, and believe that they will see one reasonable and practical outcome - the non-ratification of the atrocious treaty called JPEPA.”

- End -

[1] “JPEPA remand to Executive eyed”, Business Mirror, Butch Fernandez, 9 October 2007.

JPEPA will allow entry of used four-wheeled vehicles

2007-10-28T02:50:00.000+08:00

Is there really a need to have a provision on used cars in an economic partnership agreement?

Who insisted on having this provision belatedly inserted into the JPEPA?

1. Article 27 of the JPEPA provides for Cooperation in Relation to Export. It states:

The Parties shall cooperate with each other on the utilization of appropriate mechanism on the conformance with the importing Party's safety and environmental standards, such as roadworthiness and vehicle emission standards, of used four-wheeled motor vehicles as may be agreed by the Parties, exported from the exporting Party.

2. During the JPEPA hearing on Economics, September 20, 2007, the pro-JPEPA government panel attempted to explain the inclusion of the said provision by saying that they "insisted" on that provision to "protect the Filipino people." This is a misleading and erroneous argument that finds no support in the ACTUAL text of the JPEPA. The text itself shows the intention to allow market access for used four-wheeled motor vehicles despite the existence of Executive Order 156 that clearly prohibits the same and the Supreme Court ruling [1] that upheld the validity of the same Order.

3. While Article 27 speaks of mere cooperation, the Annex [2] of the JPEPA actually provides for the following:

(a) The Philippines may apply import duties specified in Annex A of the Executive Order No. 418 of the Philippines dated April 4, 2005, as may be amended(hereinafter referred to as "EO 418") on used motor vehicles among the originating goods to which this note is applied, in addition to customs duties as indicated in Column 4.

(b) For the purposes of subparagraph (a) above, the Philippines shall follow its normal domestic procedures in any amendment of EO 418, and shall notify Japan of the amendment of EO 418 in 60 days advance of its publication.

(c) On the request of either Party, the Parties shall negotiate on issue such as market access conditions on used motor vehicles.

4. Predictably, the government panel invoked the provision in the JPEPA's preamble which states that: "Recognizing the importance of the implementation of measures by the Governments of the Parties in accordance with their respective laws and regulations." This is an unacceptable argument.

5. If Executive Order 156 specifically prohibits the importation of used four-wheeled motor vehicles, the Executive Department had the obligation to ensure that the same Order appears in the actual text of the JPEPA. There is no excuse for them on the basis of mere oversight. Executive Order 418, passed on April 4, 2005 appears on the text of the JPEPA while EO 156 is conveniently absent despite the fact that this Order has been in place since December 12, 2002. The validity of EO 156 has also been upheld by no less than the highest court of the land, the Supreme Court of the Philippines.

6. This provision is a serious threat to the 77,000 workers of the automobile industry and thousands more in allied industries (approx. 350,000).

7. It must be emphasized that this provision DOES NOT exist in Japan's agreements with Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand.

8. This provision also DID NOT EXIST in the Working Draft of the JPEPA, April 21, 2003.

9. It must also be emphasized that the JPEPA contains another provision that threatens whatever protection any industry has under existing national laws. Article 4 of the treaty is an effective and blatant attempt by the Executive Department to usurp the legislative power of the Philippine Senate and the House of Representatives. It provides for the

Review of Laws and Regulations:

Each Party shall examine the possibility of amending or repealing laws and regulations that pertain to or affect the implementation and operation of this Agreement, if the circumstances or objectives giving rise to their adoption no longer exist or if such circumstances or objectives can be addressed in a less trade-restrictive manner.

10. The provision in article 4 WAS NOT PRESENT in the Working Draft of the JPEPA, April 21, 2003. This provision also DOES NOT EXIST in Japan's current agreements with Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand.

11. The protection against the importation of used four-wheeled vehicles provided by EO 156 is seriously threatened because by virtue of Article 4 of the actual text of the JPEPA, nothing can stop the Executive Department from issuing a subsequent Order repealing Executive Order 156 and subsequently allowing the importation of used car vehicles.

Why would the Executive Branch include Article 4 and its corresponding obligations in the JPEPA when in fact, our Constitution clearly lodges the power to amend and repeal laws, on the Congress?

Why did the Executive Branch insist on usurping the power of the Legislative Branch by including Article 4 in the JPEPA and yet refused to give them a copy of the treaty; such that members of the House of Representatives still had to file a case before the Supreme Court?

These questions have not been answered by the pro-JPEPA panel.

We should ask them again. For the future of this nation.

JUNK JPEPA.

[1] Honorable Executive Secretary, et. al., vs. Southwing Heavy Industries, Inc., et. al. G.R. No. 164171, February 20, 2006

[2] Part 1, Section 1, #3, page 279

Feel free to repost this material on your websites.

Numbers Do Not Lie.People Do.

2007-10-28T02:47:00.001+08:00

Today's question is: Do Numbers Lie?

Picture number 1 is a screenshot of page 6-7 of the JPEPA Joint Coordinating Team Report.The list macro-economic studies does not include any study done by a Filipino.
However, our lead negotiator, Thomas Aquino, in his own slide found below, suddenly presented figures from a study by Caesar Cororaton.
The answer to the question of the day: numbers do not lie but people do.

1. 0.09% does not appear in Cororaton's paper. 0.009% does but with the following conclusion:

The Gini coefficient in the scenario with FTA increases slightly to 0.46511, or 0.145 percent from the base, which indicates further worsening of income inequality. These effects are largely driven by the contraction in agriculture and the expansion of industry and the adverse effects on factor prices in agriculture.” (emphasis supplied)”

2. Did the Philippine negotiators conduct a study to check the veracity of the Kawasaki numbers? After all, our own gov't research group discusses the fact that Japan's previous stance of being against FTA changed under threat of ASEAN domination by China. The Philippines' own study provides:

Wait, why isn't Kyota's prediction not on Aquino's slide? Why should it be? 0.04% is too small. You can't convince these poor Filipinos with 0.04%.Let's just post the bigger numbers. It will be cuter on the slide.The Senators will be impressed, amazed,and totally convinced to vote for the JPEPA.

3. Cororaton and Kawasaki predict amazing job increase with the JPEPA?No, friends, they don't.Their papers do not discuss effect of the JPEPA on job generation.

4. What about FDI increase? Again, never discussed in the papers that simply limited the study to the effect of tariff reduction on goods.

5. If our own Filipino researcher, Cororaton, did in fact make a study, why isn't his paper mentioned in the listing when in fact the report states that the Philippines formed an independent research group to study the JPEPA? Maybe because the JPEPA won't be so good for the entire country after all. It will be disastrous for agriculture. So what???! Well, friends, in case the government has forgotten, the Philippines is still largely agricultural. And that little Constitutional mandate in Article 12 still talks about "sound agricultural development."

These are official records. Official materials.

The future of this nation cannot and should never be based on lies.

JUNK JPEPA.

Philippine Land for Japanese Investors

2007-10-26T11:50:00.000+08:00

The Investments Chapter of the JPEPA grants national treatment to Japanese investors and yet the Philippine negotiators made very little exceptions to that commitment. Constitutional protections were simply omitted or conveniently placed under limited sectors.

The rule against ownership of private land by foreigners is only made to apply to the manufacturing and services sector when in fact, the Constitutional rule applies to all sectors.

Observe the following:

1. PIDS JPEPA research:

2. Philippine reservation on private land ownership.Only under the manufacturing sector.

3. Reservations made to apply for ALL SECTORS:

Still no Constitutional violation?

JPEPA: Gross Violation of the Constitution

2007-10-26T10:56:00.001+08:00

1. The JPEPA was based on the Japan-Singapore Economic Partnership Agreement. Literally employing the "cut-and-paste" method, the Philippine negotiators bargained away the future of the Filipino people in exchange for speculative gains. Page 71 of the Working Draft of the JPEPA still contains the word Singapore in one of the provisions.

Consistent with this government's inability to hide its crimes with sophistication, the draft is posted on a government website . Lower right hand corner: entitled JPEPA.

2: Until today, the government wants us to believe that there is nothing in the JPEPA that allows for the importation of toxic and hazardous wastes.

However, they failed to explain during the Senate hearing why items FIT ONLY FOR DISPOSAL remain in the list of Originating Goods. Are these not wastes?

DTI now pressures the DENR to defend the position of the government despite the fact that from the very start, DENR was opposed to the inclusion of these wastes in the Philippines' list of tradeable goods.

Items FIT ONLY FOR DISPOSAL were also explicitly striken out from the 2003 Working Draft of the JPEPA (pages 16-17 found below).

3. DTI also attempts to explain the inclusion of these wastes by saying that they HAD TO INCLUDE them because of the Harmonised System.

However, aside from violating national laws and the Basel Convention by the inclusion of said wastes, DTI commits another flagrant mistake: they did not only copy the existing rates as established by the Harmonised System, they also reduced most of the rates to zero. This is an additional proof of the intent to allow toxic trade; an additional economic incentive to allow the entry of toxic and hazardous wastes into the Philippines.

4. Because of the public outrage, the Executive Branch attempts to shut the Filipino up by coming up with their much-publicized May 23, 2007 side notes. This is a 2-page document that does not create an obligation but merely maintains status quo. It will not eliminate specific commitments found in the text of the JPEPA itself. The Executive Branch's legally absurd and belated defense is betrayed by the issuance of these side notes. After all, if indeed they believe that there is nothing in the JPEPA that allows for the entry of wastes, these sides notes are not really necessary after all. It is more logical that these side notes were issued in order to silence the Filipino people.

However, despite serious violations of national laws and the Constitution, the Executive Branch remains confident that the Senate will approve the JPEPA. Despite its successive failure to defend the treaty on the Senate floor, the Executive Branch believes that the JPEPA will be approved.

We, the Filipino people, must now ask: WHY?

What will the Executive Branch use to convince the Senators of the Republic of the Philippines to vote for the JPEPA?

The world is watching the Philippines and the Philippine Senate.

Will we allow ourselves to be the laughingstock of the world?

The country that was threatened by its own Executive Department that it will miss the boat if the JPEPA is not signed?

The country whose Senators, its lawmakers, the representatives of the Filipino people, could not even cast a vote to defend national laws and the Constitution?

Perhaps the Executive Branch has forgotten that at the end of the day, the Senators of the Republic of the Philippines are representatives of the Filipino people.

JUNK JPEPA!

In national convention, nurses pray for Senate’s rejection of JPEPA

2007-10-25T22:03:00.000+08:00

Cagayan de Oro, Oct. 24- Gathering here for their 50th National Convention, some 2,000 nurses from all over the country lighted candles during a plenary session and prayed for the senators to heed the opposition of Filipino nurses against the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), which, in its present terms, they claim will expose them to abuse and exploitation in Japan.

In a prayer led by President Leah Paquiz and the Board of Governors of the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA), the nurses prayed for the senators to pay attention to the “fundamental shortcomings” of the bilateral preferential trade agreement in protecting the dignity and welfare of Filipino nurses and caregivers.

Headed by their president Leah Paquiz, the nurses, under the national organization of the Philippine Nurses Association, have been very vocal in their opposition to the JPEPA and have joined a wider call by civil society organizations to junk the agreement.

In a previous Senate hearing on the agreement, the nurses pointed out that because of the mandatory “on-the-job training” in Japan, a qualified Filipino nurse will effectively be a trainee under the supervision of a Japanese nurse, offering cheap labor with no worker rights’ protection, for up to three years or until she passes the licensure exam in Nihongo.

This arrangement, the nurses said, gives no job security for Filipino nurses and will integrate them into the trainee system of Japan, where non-Japanese nationals do the same work as Japanese nationals but are paid considerably less.

“The stringent language requirements of the JPEPA, although not bad per se, will however conspire so that the Filipino nurse will never gain the status of a Japanese nurse and will be forever relegated to an inferior trainee status with lesser pay simply because she hasn’t mastered Nihongo as well as a Japanese national born to the language,” said Paquiz.

The nurses also noted in their prayer that during the five hearings conducted by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations chaired by Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, the universal agreement was that the panel supporting the JPEPA miserably failed to convince the senators to ratify the agreement, even turning previous supportive senators into skeptics with regard to the actual benefits of the agreement.

The nurses hoped that the senators would “stand their ground in asserting the rule of law, the sacredness of our people’s sovereignty and the primacy of human dignity, especially that of the Filipino nurses and caregivers.”

VISAYAS LAWYERS SAY NO TO JPEPA

2007-10-24T20:03:00.000+08:00

VISAYAS LAWYERS SAY NO TO JPEPA

Cites Unconstitutionality of the Treaty as Basis for Rejection

Oct. 23, 2007. Cebu City . Visayas lawyers submitted a petition to the Senate today strongly urging “the Upper House to reject JPEPA in its entirety and cast a NO VOTE, for and on behalf of all present and future generations [of Filipinos].” In their petition, the lawyers characterized the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) as unconstitutional. The petition was developed by participating lawyers at the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) Seminar on October 19, 2007 in Cebu City.

“The Constitution is the fundamental covenant between the State and the Filipino people. We as lawyers have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution. We cannot remain silent to what we see as a blatant attack against this hallowed covenant,” explained Gloria Estenzo Ramos, a faculty member of the University of Cebu College of Law, the organizer of the MCLE Seminar.

The lawyers referred to the Senate hearing on the constitutionality of the JPEPA, wherein two Constitutional and international law experts retired Supreme Court Justice Florentino Feliciano and former University of the Philippines College of Law Dean, Professor Merlin Magallona, assailed the JPEPA on several key Constitutional grounds. Among the points raised by retired Justice Feliciano was that the JPEPA unduly extended national treatment to the Japanese, violating the constitutional requirements of preferential treatment for Filipinos under Art. XII, sec. 2, par 2 of the 1987 Constitution. Prof. Magallona, on the other hand, criticized the JPEPA for reducing the Philippine government to a mere insurance company, guaranteeing Japanese business from even non-State acts.

Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition lead counsel Golda Benjamin and Basel Action Network (Asia-Pacific) director lawyer Richard Gutierrez, were present at the MCLE Program and spoke before the gathered lawyers, deploring the lack of transparency, absence of consultation with the affected sectors, and the visible lack of study and through preparation on the part of the government representatives in the JPEPA negotiations.

“There is a time to listen and there is a time to act. Now is the time to act. We call on our compañeros and compañeras throughout the land to help defend the Constitution,” exclaimed Atty. Ramos. “I repeat our call to our honorable Senators, Vote NO to JPEPA and protect the Filipinos now and future generations.”

Nursing faculty and students say Junk JPEPA at Trinity University, Quezon City

2007-10-19T22:02:00.000+08:00

“Babagan ang JPEPA!”

2007-10-19T01:17:00.000+08:00

"Babagan ang JPEPA!" -- Farmers, urban poor groups, environmentalists and other members of various Cebu-based civil society groups decry the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) for allowing Japanese citizens to own private land in the Philippines in violation of the Philippine Constitution. Photo by Marnie Dolera/GAIA.

“Babagan ang JPEPA!”

Farmers Decry Treaty for Allowing Japanese to Own Land

October 17, 2007. Cebu City. -- “Babagan ang JPEPA!” was the strident call coming from farmers attending a regional forum[i] on the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA). Farmer groups from the north and south of Cebu and basic sector groups[ii] gathered at the University of the Philippines-Cebu to discuss the impact of the JPEPA on agriculture, Filipino land ownership and the environment.

At the center of the regional discussion was JPEPA’s assault on the Philippine Constitution by allowing Japanese entities to own land in contravention of the limits set by the Constitution. Under Art. XII, Section 7 of the Constitution, ownership of private lands are allowed only to Filipino citizens and to corporations whose capital is owned by at least 60% of such citizens. However, it was revealed at the forum that the Government negotiating panel for the JPEPA made a crucial error in including the Constitutional limitation on land ownership in Annex 7 of the JPEPA only in the manufacturing sector when the Constitution imposes the limit for all sectors.

The Philippine government’s omission in Annex 7 in effect ties its hands to later raise the land ownership limits on Japanese investors. Under Article 89 of the JPEPA, the Philippines must treat Japanese investors with terms no less favorable than those for Filipinos, paving the way for them to own land in the Philippines in violation of the Constitutional limit.

“Under the JPEPA, the Japanese are being treated better than the Filipinos in their own land!” exclaimed, Pascual Tabuac from Philnet-RDI. “Filipino farmers have been waiting for over 20 years to own land, yet with the ratification of this controversial treaty, in a matter of two years the Japanese will be able to own the same land we have been tilling all our lives.

Filipino farmers are concerned over the pending end of the budget, in 2008, for the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), which will give them a slim chance to own land. By opening the land to Japanese investors, the struggle for true agrarian reform will be ignored. Adding to the concern of farmers is the fact that private lands are now slowly being leased to private investors (i.e. RP-China Agri-Business deals).[iii]

“The JPEPA will hammer our farmers starting from tariffs on their agricultural exports all the way to land ownership,” stated Atty. Golda Benjamin, lead counsel of the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition, one of the resource speakers at the forum. “The Philippine government has neglected its farmers for too long. It needs to change this course, and it can begin by not ratifying JPEPA.”

[i] The Regional Forum was organized by: Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), Green Forum, University of the Philippines in the Visayas-Cebu College (UPVCC), Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment Through Alternative Legal Services (IDEALS), Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC). Resource persons: Atty. Golda Benjamin, Lead Counsel MJJC, Atty. Richard Gutierrez, Director, Basel Action Network (Asia-Pacific), Ms. Marnie Dolera, Coordinator of the MJJC.

[ii] Those present at the forum were: Freedom from Debt Coalition, Philnet-RDI, YouFra, FMJPIC, SFDRREAM, Piglas Kabataan, NUWHRAIN, Sanlakas Youth, PM, ASUCAR, LANFABA, KPML, APL, FDC, FIND, Sanlakas-Cebu, TFFI, SEIV, SIFPO, KPD, DPSOI, GKK-Coop, GKK-HOA.

[iii] Right now, many private land owners lease out their lands that are vulnerable to CARP coverage and use the existing lease contract as an excuse not to be covered by the program (although the law does not exclude such lands from coverage)

JPICC - AMRSP SOLIDARITY STATEMENT

2007-10-11T14:49:00.000+08:00

Uphold the Integrity of the Public Hearings on JPEPA!

Reject the Treaty: The Moral Imperative!

We are at present at the heart of a raging controversy relating to the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), the unprecedented trade and investment pact between the two sovereign states that require the concurrence of members of the Senate.

We are in agreement with Sen. Mar Roxas that indeed, “No Deal Is Better than a Bad Deal”. In fact, it is more than obvious that a “stale food” can never be eaten from the very start. Undue haste, no public hearings nor documents, insisting that the JPEPA was an executive agreement and the secret dealings were national government actions before the treaty was transmitted to the Senate in 2006. These were clear signs that this treaty is nothing but a bad and immoral deal.

After the diligent holding of public hearings through the leadership of Sen. Miriam Santiago, we expect our Senators to perform their constitutional duty of rejecting the treaty. In all five public hearings, civil society groups from trade, environment, church, workers and like- minded sectors have proven to the citizens of this country that there is real proof for its outright rejection.

The Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Commission-Association of the Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines in support of the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition argues:

1. A central teaching of the Church is the fundamental equality of all human beings, having been created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), which affirms the innate dignity of each person (CCC no. 2334). Humans as social beings come together in the spirit of solidarity to achieve what is for the good of all.

Thus any pact forged by the government with any entity, be it government or corporation, should not diminish our people’s dignity and give gratuitous preferential treatment to foreign nationals. It is a moral imperative to bar any move that will weaken the shared human dignity and the inalienable rights of a sovereign people that spring from it.

2. Another core teaching of the Church is the primacy of the common good – “the good of all and each individual” (SRS, 38), over and above the constricted interests of an individual, a family, a social class or a political party. The common good is "the sum total of all those conditions of social life which enables individuals, families, and organizations to achieve complete and efficacious fulfillment" (GS, 74). "The Church praises and esteems those who devote themselves to the public good for the service of all and take upon themselves the burdens of public office" (GS, 75). As a prophetic Church, we are committed to protecting the common good and social well being, working for justice and peace for all concerned (CCC nos. 1906-09).

Thus, it is essential for all political activities, including treaties negotiated by political authorities, to contribute to the fulfillment of the common good and not to agree with any lopsided arrangement that ignores or betrays the common good. It is a moral act to go against any deal that will reduce or demolish what is good for all.

3. The preferential option for the poor and the vulnerable is another teaching that should guide the Church and the society in the conduct of its affairs. As the purveyor of “good news to the poor” (Luke 4:1-22), the Church is tasked to "promote the good of every person and of the whole person;" (PP, 14) and is called to take her stand beside the poor and to discern and respond to their cry for justice (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, Paragraph. 39). The Church believes that “excessive economic and social disparity between individuals and peoples of the one human race is a source of scandal and militates against social justice, equity, human dignity, as well as social... peace” (Vatican II, The Church in the Modern World, 29).

Thus a pact that is supposed to serve the national interest should be examined as to how its implementation will impact the lives of the poor and the vulnerable. It is a moral duty to side with the exploited, oppressed and marginalized in society, uphold their concerns, and to craft an agreement that is supposed to lift them from dehumanizing poverty.

4. Another Gospel-based teaching that we would like to emphasize is the value of caring for and protecting the natural environment, so that it is shared and preserved for the common good in line with God’s plan: He created man and woman in His image and charged them to be stewards of His creation (Genesis 1:27-28). Jesus, as told by St. John, saw His mission in this light. "I have come that they may have life and have it to the full." (John 10:10).

Thus it is vital that we scrutinize how an agreement will affect ongoing efforts to defend our natural resources from pollution, destruction and demise due to unfettered exploitation. “To put it simply: our country is in peril. All the living systems on land and in the seas around us are being ruthlessly exploited. The damage to date is extensive and, sad to say, it is often irreversible” (CBCP Pastoral Letter on Ecology: “What is happening to Our Beautiful Land?” 1988). It is our moral task to ensure that economic integration will not serve as a passport for globalized abuse and misuse of our fragile environment, including the development of market conditions for the illicit and unjust trade in toxic and hazardous wastes.

Guided by the Holy Scriptures and by the social and moral teachings of the Church, we see the non-ratification of JPEPA as necessary, just and morally right. Instead of concurring to a flawed agreement that breaches the Philippine Constitution and ignores the people’s aspirations for economic justice and environmental justice, we urge the Senate to censure and reject JPEPA for its barefaced failure to serve and uphold the common good. We trust that our Senators will decide on JPEPA with the welfare, security and health of all Filipinos at heart.

To address the threat of toxic waste dumping, we urge the Senate to ratify without further delay the Basel Ban Amendment as a counter-measure that will block the export of globally banned or restricted toxic and hazardous wastes from affluent generators like Japan to the Philippines and other developing countries.

To prevent our country from being shortchanged in future bilateral or multilateral negotiations, we urge the Senate to enact a law that will create the Philippine Trade Representative Office (PTRO) to facilitate a more coordinated, coherent, accountable, fair and equitable approach to trade negotiations and ensure full stakeholders’ consultation and participation.

Through the “principles of reflection, criteria for judgment and directives for actions” found in the social teachings of the Church an ethical and honorable decision on JPEPA is no other than upholding the merits of the arguments in favor of the country’s interest.

We pray that the Spirit of the Living God will illumine and guide you in making an ethical and moral decision with respect to JPEPA. Through the intercession of the Blessed Mother and San Lorenzo Ruiz, who with his suffering and death in Okinawa, Japan, taught us to live and defend our faith, may we continue with our journey for real development, justice and peace for the greater good of the whole creation. ##

Signatories:

Association of the Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines (AMRSP)

Dominican Family Justice Peace and Care of Creation-Asia Pacific Region

Missionary Society of St. Columban (MSSC)

Xaverian Missionaries (SX)

Xaverian Missionaries of Christ Jesus (XMCJ)

Medical Mission Sisters (MMS)

Siervas de San Jose (SSJ)

Sr. Cecilia Bayona, AMP

General Superior

Augustinian Missionaries of the Philippines (AMP)

Sr. Angie Villanueva, RC

JPIC Coordinator

Congregation of Our Lady of Retreat in the Cenacle (RC)

Sr. Elvira Valenzuela, MMS

Medical Mission Sisters (MMS)

Fr. Rey Caigoy, O.Carm
Order of Carmelites (O.Carm)

Fr. Nelson Zerda, OSA

JPIC Coordinator

Order of St. Augustine (OSA)

INQUIRER EDITORIAL: SUN SETS ON JPEPA

2007-10-11T11:42:00.000+08:00

The editorial piece below came out in today's edition of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the country's leading broadsheet. It also published Atty. Golda Benjamin's response to Solita Monsod's article, The Other Side of JPEPA, in today's Letter To The Editor section.

EDITORIAL
Sun sets on JPEPA

Inquirer
Last updated 10:37pm (Mla time) 10/10/2007

TO THE UNTRAINED EYE or the unsuspecting mind, the scrupulously measured language of the Japan-Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement seems neutral enough. The first provision of Article 96, for instance, seems fair on its face: "Each Party shall accord to investors of the other Party that have suffered loss or damage relating to their investments ... due to armed conflict or state of emergency such as revolution, insurrection, civil disturbance or any other similar event ... treatment ... that is no less favorable than the most favorable treatment which it accords to any investors."

It takes a lawyer like former University of the Philippines College of Law dean Merlin Magallona to see through the balanced blandness. This article and another one related to it, Article 98, mean the Philippines agrees to serve as a guarantor of Japanese investments against the risk of civil disturbances and the like. "This would make the Philippines liable for acts of private individuals," Magallona told the Senate foreign relations committee the other day. "This is a remarkable abdication of our sovereign prerogative. We should be responsible only by reasons of our own sovereign acts, not those by private persons."

Come to think of it, what is the probability that Philippine investments in Tokyo will be lost because of, say, an insurrection in Japan?

Magallona and another, even more eminent lawyer, former Supreme Court Associate Justice Florentino Feliciano, presented separate legal studies they had prepared on the controversial JPEPA before the Senate committee chaired by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago. (Feliciano's paper was read by another lawyer.) Feliciano, perhaps the country's foremost expert on international law, said the JPEPA was marked by "serious constitutional problems." He pointed to several instances, including Annex 7 of the agreement, which lists what is called the schedule of reservations. That listing of exceptions is fatally incomplete, Feliciano said.

"This omission in the Philippine Schedule to Part 1 of Annex 7 means that, should JPEPA come into legal effect, Japanese investors would be entitled to own more than 40 percent of a public utility enterprise in the Philippines under the JPEPA. This result would be in direct contravention
of our Constitution."

When that happens, the Philippines can refuse to allow it, precisely on constitutional grounds. When it does so, however, "such denial would ... be a breach of our treaty obligations ... and generate ... probable liability for damages before an international judicial or arbitral forum."

Those who defend the agreement by reassuring the public that unconstitutional arrangements would be disallowed anyway fail to mention that, by allowing the possibility of such arrangements in the first place, the Philippine government has already acted against its own best interests.

But if the omissions in the Philippine schedule of reservations in Annex 7 are an instance of a contracting party tying one hand behind its back, the stipulations in Article 94 (again, innocuous to the non-legal eye) give us an example of a contracting party tying itself to a corner, and on its own
initiative. These provisions prevent Congress from passing laws in the future that may run counter to the JPEPA, Feliciano said.

Santiago is a key ally of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and a supporter of key administration measures. But she is also a lawyer, and her respect for Feliciano is boundless. ("In my personal view, when Justice Feliciano says something, that is no longer debatable," she said. Feliciano's opinion "is simply [on] the level of the supernatural--when he says something, there is almost nothing that you can say against it.")

The impact the position papers of Feliciano and Magallona had on the committee members seems to have sealed the fate of the agreement.

Much of the controversy over the JPEPA involves the possibility of toxic waste dumping, the tighter rather than looser access to the Japanese market for Filipino nurses, the government's lack of transparency. It was necessary to debate these issues, but the other day Santiago drew the JPEPA bottom line with great precision: "That is the most fundamental priority of all these hearings: Is it constitutional or not?"

It isn't.

JPEPA:A Clear And Present Danger To The Automotive And Iron And Steel Workers

2007-10-10T22:12:00.000+08:00

JPEPA:A Clear And Present Danger To The Automotive
And Iron And Steel Workers

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.

More than 3,000 workers belonging to the Philippine Metalworkers' Alliance (PMA) today trooped to the Senate to add their voices to the growing clamor for the rejection of the onerous Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).

"JPEPA presents a clear and present danger to the automotive and iron and steel workers in the country," Frank Mero, national president of the PMA and of the Automotive Industry Workers' Alliance (AIWA). "In its present form, the jobs of that least 77,000 as well as tens of thousands of iron and steel workers whose livelihoods depend, directly or indirectly, on the automotive industry are imperiled as JPEPA threatens to destroy the country's automotive industry," he added.

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.
In the Senate hearing, Frank Mero pointed out that Article 27 of the JPEPA agreement would pave the way for the legalization of used four-wheeled motor vehicles. "This is in violation of Executive Order 156," Mero pointed out.

EO 156 was issued way back 2002, which prohibits importation of second-hand vehicles, not only to protect the country's fledging automotive industry but also to protect the public from unsafe vehicles that fail to meet the country's environmental standards.

Article 27 was not in the original text of the agreement. "Like several provisions in JPEPA, Article 27 was inserted by our negotiators in the course of the bargaining. The question is, why did our negotiators insert this provision and in whose interest? Surely it is not for the automotive industry and its workers," Mero stated.

Compared to the economic partnership agreements made by Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia with Japan, JPEPA is an inferior agreement. "Nowhere in the Thai, Indonesia and Malaysian agreements with Japan would you find the same provision that we have in Article 27 of JPEPA," Mero explained.

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.
"More importantly, our neighbors have even succeeded in providing better protection for their automotive industry in their EPAs with Japan," Mero said. "Why did our negotiators fail to do the same?"

"Clearly, our negotiators have sold us out!" Mero declared.

The workers joined hands with thousands of other workers, peasants, fisherfolk, women, urban poor and youth who joined the rally led by Junk JPEPA.

More photos:

All pictures by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.

QTV 11: Senate sets last hearing for JPEPA

2007-10-08T19:59:00.000+08:00

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MAGKAISA JUNK JPEPA: KNOCKOUT JAPAN PACT

2007-10-08T18:34:00.000+08:00

MAGKAISA JUNK JPEPA: KNOCKOUT JAPAN PACT

Claims 5-0 Scorecard in favor of Opponents

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.

08 Oct. 2007. -- Magkaisa Junk JPEPA, a coalition of NGOs and mass movements, today pressed anew for the junking of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement, calling the agreement constitutionally and legally toxic.

In a mock boxing match, an oversized JPEPA is shown being knocked out by a determined Inang Bayan, symbolizing the people's victory over the controversial economic argreement. A crowd of some 2,000 automotive workers, urban poor, and civil society groups was there to bear witness to the event.

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.
The group stressed that in the five face-offs between the government panel and the coalition's organizations in Senate hearings, the government has failed miserably in defending the economic pact with

Japan

. Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition stressed that "after five rounds of defeat, the JPEPA must be unanimously knocked out."

"In spirit and in substance, JPEPA represents an insidious and patent violation of the 1987 Constitution and our laws. The only remedy to this anomaly is the immediate junking of the agreement," Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition said.

The group said that the GMA administration abused its constitutional powers when it signed an agreement that clearly surrenders the sovereignty of the country to the Japanese. "If ratified, JPEPA would effectively subjugate the Philippine economy under the Japanese economy since it grants one-sided concessions to the other party," the coalition said. "The government acted in violation of its mandate to represent the interest of the Filipino people and uphold the country's sovereignty."

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.
Submission to JPEPA also means that the government would serve as an insurance company to Japanese investors, undermining both the integrity of the State and the sovereignty of the Filipino people. "Under Article 96 of JPEPA, the government is obliged to compensate Japanese investors should they incur losses from damages due to state of emergency such as revolution, insurrection, and civil disturbance, among others. This compromises the independence of the Philippine State and undermines the Filipino people's exercise of their sovereign rights," the coalition added, explaining that liberally construed, this provision actually attaches unfair and anomalous obligations to supreme acts of sovereign will such as popular uprisings.

The coalition also urged Senate to exercise its broad oversight powers and to correct the constitutional error committed by the government by rejecting the agreement.

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.
"Lopsided provisions in JPEPA prove that the government has usurped powers that are accorded to Congress," it said. "Articles 4, 18 and 20 of JPEPA, which commit the country to eliminate duties and taxes on goods imported from Japan and the repeal of laws that obstruct the implementation of the deal, abuse powers that are exclusively delegated to Congress by the Constitution."

"The Constitution grants the power of taxation to Congress. This cannot be overturned simply by Japanese negotiators and Filipino officials conspiring against the future of the Philippines ," the coalition said.

It likewise warned Senate against other constitutionally and legally onerous provisions in JPEPA. "JPEPA goes against the constitutional mandate on the preferential use of Philippine products. What's worse is that reciprocity under the deal is grossly uneven, with Japanese products substantially gaining greater access to Philippine market and Filipino products still facing stiff market barriers to enter Japan's market," the coalition said.

According to the coalition, JPEPA weakens the negotiating power of the Philippines vis-à-vis Japan and other WTO members. "On one hand, under the Most Favored Nation status in WTO, all concessions given by the Philippines to Japan would accrue to other WTO members. On the other hand, the non-discrimination clause in Article 132 of JPEPA compels the country to offer Japan greater concessions if the same concessions have been provided to other trading partners," the coalition said. "This considerably weakens the power of the Philippine State to negotiate for trade deals that are truly beneficial to the country."

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.
Magkaisa Junk JPEPA implored the Senate to junk the deal. "Today is the last hearing of the Senate on an agreement whose anomalous nature has finally unraveled. There is no reason to believe that the government panel would still be able to sugar-coat a biased agreement. JPEPA must be rejected," the coalition implored.

More photos:

All photos by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.

What happens if you don't take the time to study the JPEPA?

2007-10-07T15:19:00.000+08:00

If one releases an opinion about the JPEPA, without having read the text of the document, he will fall into the trap of misunderstanding. This happens even to people like Prof. Winnie Monsod. Prof. Monsod committed a blunder: making statements before checking her sources. However, like some traps, there is still time to get out of it and save oneself.

This is a reaction to her article. We may not have a column on a major paper or enough money to launch a media campaign but we have truth and the interests of the Filipino people on our side. We don't need anything else.

Para sa Pilipinas, Para sa Pilipino,

Golda S. Benjamin
Lead Counsel
Magkaisa JUNK JPEPA Coalition

Prof. Monsod's article, "The Other Side of JPEPA," dated October 6, 2007, is a sad reflection of this government's failure to give the Filipino people some well-informed information about the JPEPA. Prof. Monsod is sadly misinformed; unfortunately, she did not check her sources before acting on those information. She says:

"The way the agreement’s opponents see it, the JPEPA is not only one-sided (in favor of Japan, naturally), but the Japanese government is doing this in order to ensure that it can use the Philippines as a dumping ground for all its toxic wastes. Which is why, their story goes, the negotiations were in secret, and copies of the agreement were withheld from the public."

"As mentioned above, it is the Philippines that is sending toxic wastes to Japan, because we don’t have the technology to manage them. Sure, the tariffs on imported wastes will be zero. But that is irrelevant -- because their importation is banned (by international as well as national fiat). And in any case, my understanding is that Japan has signed a side letter making that even clearer."

The JPEPA is one-sided. Japan has 651 items in its exclusion list: products that they will not subject to liberalization because they want to protect their small producers. The Philippines only excluded two products; rice and salt (6 tariff lines).

"the negotiations, which took place over a two-year period, were never secret; and the draft agreement has been available on the Internet since sometime the end of 2003/beginning of 2004. And the agreement is renegotiated every five years anyway."

Prof. Monsod should be forgiven if she missed the news that Akbayan representatives from our own Congress and other concerned groups had to file a case in the Supreme Court in order to get a copy of the final text of the JPEPA. Having a copy of the mere draft of the JPEPA is not a compliance of the State's duty to provide its own citizens with information on matters of public concern.

Prof. Monsod can perhaps be forgiven if she still does not know that our government representatives repeatedly invoked, during the Congressional hearings, that the JPEPA is an exception is to the disclosure requirement. Ma'am, the government panel did in fact attempt to hide the final details of this treaty. They even attempted to bypass the process of Senate concurrence by claiming that the JPEPA is a mere executive agreement.

Prof. Monsod is correct: the draft of the JPEPA is on the PIDS website but if she only took the time to read the draft she would immediately notice that the article on scraps and wastes (pp. 16-17) are stricken out. This is consistent with the DENR's earlier opposition against the inclusion of toxic and hazardous wastes. Primarily, the public must be informed that in the first place, the Basel Convention and RA 6969 prohibits the inclusion of these wastes in our list of committed tradable goods. The Convention allows developed countries to accept these wastes because of its recognition of the fact that these countries can manage them; and have in fact made it a thriving business. Because developing countries cannot manage these wastes, the importation ban is established. This is the policy behind the Basel Convention.

Prof. Monsod should take the time to read the 2-page diplomatic notes; it only covers toxic wastes. It can easily be downloaded from the MOFA's website.

"Please note that the Philippines was the first country (after Singapore) with which Japan pursued the idea. But it has since entered into the same kind of economic partnership agreements with Malaysia, Thailand (which will be in force by November of this year) Indonesia and Brunei -- with no problems at all. In fact, with Singapore, the five-year period is already up. What’s more, the agreement with Vietnam is pretty close to completion. And here we are, left at the starting post, with everybody moving in front of us."

Prof. Monsod should also read page 71 of the Working Draft of the JPEPA which still has the words "Singapore" in one of the provisions; a proof that the negotiators literally used the 'cut-and-paste' method to come up with the draft of the JPEPA.

We hope that Prof. Monsod has read Japan's agreements with the other countries. If she has not read these agreements, she must be informed that these countries' agreements are not similar to the JPEPA.

Only the Philippines gave up the right to implement our laws requiring technology transfer and the hiring of Filipino nationals in Japanese companies. Only the Philippines agreed to examine its own laws and consider the possibility of amending them if they are inconsistent with the JPEPA. This is a blatant usurpation of legislative power.

If Prof. Monsod took the time to read the 99-page draft, she would also discover that the article on used cars was not present in the draft; an article that threatens the jobs of 350,000 workers of the local car manufacturing industry.

"What is the basis for the conclusion that JPEPA’s benefits to us far exceed the costs? These issues were studied by a team of researchers from various institutions under the auspices of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS). I understand the accusation has been made that the PIDS, having been financed by the Japanese aid agency, Japan International Cooperation Agency, was partial to Japan. That is another example of ad hominem arguments (you can’t win on the issues, so attack the personalities)."

The papers of the PIDS have been accurate and if its recommendations on the protection of our local agricultural industry, on the necessity of technology transfer, and on the sensitivity of the automobile sector were adopted, our government negotiators would not have failed to protect the interests of the Filipino people.

Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and even Singapore got Japan to commit to the elimination of trade distorting export subsidies. Our negotiators only got a best efforts commitment to remove export subsidies.

The PIDS studies already revealed Japan's request to lift our Constitutional rule against foreign ownership of private lands and yet our negotiators did not make the correct exception to our commitment on national treatment.

Prof. Monsod should also read pages 6-7 of the JPEPA Joint Coordinating Team Report so that she will discover that the paper of our own PIDS (Cororaton, 2004) was abandoned as part of the macro-economic studies for the JPEPA. That the "Japanese side provided studies of macroeconomic impact of JPEPA."

"The benefits the country will derive from the JPEPA have been estimated to be anywhere between P6.5 billion to P110 billion based on current GDP figures, due to an improved investment climate (projected foreign direct investment from Japan amounting to P365 billion, plus more than 200,000 jobs, increasing as Japanese investors become comfortable and familiar with local partners)."

Prof. Monsod should have attended the first hearing on the JPEPA where the government failed to even justify the basis of their figures. They said it came from their own investment missions, which, the professor must know, is a usual activity made by our government with or without JPEPA. In fact, the senators had to remind the government panel that these investment missions often do not translate to actual investments because the investors hesitate to invest because of the following factors: corruption, poor infrastructure, and very high power costs. Several studies have already shown that FTAs do not directly result to the inflow of FDI.

The government panel also failed to justify the basis for their projections as regards job increase.

"In the agreement, because of zero tariffs on both sides, the Philippines will now be open to a free flow of agricultural imports from Japan, and vice versa. Think of it, dear reader. What Japanese agricultural goods can we afford to buy? (Last time I was in Japan, a cherry cost the equivalent of $2.) On the other hand, what agricultural goods from the Philippines can the Japanese not afford to buy? Who do you think will benefit more?"

Obviously, Prof. Monsod did not take time to read and review Annex 1 of the JPEPA. Prof, zero tariffs will not be imposed on all our agricultural products to Japan. Japan’s agriculture representatives were clear during the negotiation process that tariff elimination is not their priority; that they wanted to protect their own local industries. Page 8 of the JPEPA Joint Coordinating Team Report would reveal Japan's protective stance on their own agricultural industry.

Aside from not agreeing to zero tariffs for most of the agricultural products from the Philippines, Japan has also excluded more than 200 agricultural items in their commitment to liberalization.

Prof. Monsod's "cherry argument" is cute but irrelevant. She must be informed that Japan's farmers are now developing themselves so they can produce fruits and vegetables for export. That is why they agreed to the other countries' commitment to eliminate tariffs only after 10 years; by that time, they would be highly competitive in terms of price and quality.

"With respect to services, the Japanese have opened their labor market for nurses and caregivers -- a landmark decision for them -- but the market will be filled, if we wait too long, by Indonesians and other ASEAN countries that already have an economic partnership agreement with Japan."

If Prof. Monsod takes the time to read the final text of the JPEPA, she will discover that our nurses will be sent to Japan as trainees; a deviation from the draft's initial position to seek Japan's recognition of our professionals as equally qualified upon entry to Japan. Indonesia got a better deal for their own nurses who undergo only a 3-year nursing course and comply with the requirement of 2-year work experience. There is no national treatment provision in the chapter for Movement of Natural Persons; contrary to the claims of the government representatives in last week's hearing.

Prof. Monsod must also be informed that Japan has only allowed Indonesian nurses; but nevertheless invoked the right to decide the maximum number of nurses that can come in.

We are certain that Prof. Monsod did not read Annex 8 of the JPEPA. She does not know the provisions as illustrated in the tables below:

Requirements

JPEPA

(Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement)

JIEPA

(Japan-Indonesia Economic Partnership Agreement)

Who is a qualified nurse under the agreement with Japan?

1. 4-year nursing education

2. passed own national licensure exam

1. Diploma III nurse: 3-year professional education OR having graduated from a faculty of nursing of a university in Indonesia

2. no need for own national licensure exam

Pre-entry to Japan

3 years work experience as a nurse

2 years work experience as a nurse

JPEPA Requirements

Canada

Israel

Pre-entry requirements

a. have a bachelor’s degree

(from an institution where the minimum period required for graduation is 4 years)

b. certified as a caregiver by the Government of the Philippines

Requirement II:

Natural person who graduated from a nursing school

Minimum requirement

a. High school diploma

b. certification as a qualified caregiver

Minimum Requirement

a. High School diploma

b. certification as a qualified caregiver

"Bottom line: The JPEPA is worth it. In fact, we can’t afford not to sign, because with everyone else but us on board, Japan will bring its business to them, and we may even lose what we already have. Is that what we really want?"

We do not want an agreement that opens our private lands to foreign ownership; even before the Constitutional prohibition against it has been lifted.
We do not want agreement that will destroy the lives of our farmers and fishermen.
We do not want an agreement that clearly violates national law and international conventions.

Japan could have been a great economic partner. In its agreements with other countries, Japan did not force them to give up certain provisions necessary to protect local industries. The pro-JPEPA panel insists that if we do not sign this treaty, we will miss the boat. Unfortunately, the JPEPA in its current form will cause the Filipino people not only to miss the boat but also drown in the sea of negotiation mistakes.

I have faith that Prof. Monsod will change her mind after actually reading the entire text of the JPEPA. She will defend the Filipino people as she has done so many times before.

The dangers of the JPEPA are not the creations of Japan; these are products of our negotiators' failure to ensure that the Filipino people get the deal we deserve.

2007-10-05T07:20:00.000+08:00

Filipino Nurses are NOT FOR SALE!

JUNK JPEPA!!

The JPEPA is an assault against the dignity and freedom of the Filipino people. Our negotiators have bargained away our future for the sake of speculative promises and uncertain gains.

Today, the JPEPA is currently being heard at the Senate. Pursuant to the Constitution, the Senators can only cast a YES or a NO vote for this treaty. The Senate cannot make amendments or modifications. They can either accept it or reject it, as a whole.

For the Filipino nurses, considered to be among the best in the world, our Philippine negotiators for the JPEPA are offering to send them to Japan as nurse trainees instead of professional nurses.

While nurses from Indonesia, with their 3-year nursing course, are required only 2 years of work experience, our Philippine negotiators agreed to the requirement of 3 years of work experience for our nurses who undergo 4 years of nursing education and who must pass the Philippines’ own national licensure exam. Nurses from Indonesia do not need to pass their own national licensure exam for them to work in Japan.

Requirements

JPEPA

(Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement)

JIEPA

(Japan-Indonesia Economic Partnership Agreement)

Who is a qualified nurse under the agreement with Japan?

1. 4-year nursing education

2. passed own national licensure exam

1. Diploma III nurse: 3-year professional education OR having graduated from a faculty of nursing of a university in Indonesia

2. no need for own national licensure exam

Pre-entry to Japan

3 years work experience as a nurse

2 years work experience as a nurse

Filipino caregivers are not for SALE!

The Filipino caregivers are now one of the best in the world. Countries like Canada and Israel trust their skill and value their compassion. With the JPEPA, our Philippine negotiators created illusory markets for our caregivers.

It is insulting for them to simply assert that: “Kung ayaw nila nito, eh di wag nila tanggapin.” (If they don’t want this, then they’re not forced to accept it.) The job of a Filipino negotiator is to get the best deal for the Filipinos. To provide our care givers with REAL CHOICES.

JPEPA Requirements

Canada

Israel

Pre-entry requirements

a. have a bachelor’s degree

(from an institution where the minimum period required for graduation is 4 years)

b. certified as a caregiver by the Government of the Philippines

Requirement II:

Natural person who graduated from a nursing school

Minimum requirement

a. High school diploma

b. certification as a qualified caregiver

Minimum Requirement

a. High School diploma

b. certification as a qualified caregiver

This is an unfair deal. This is not a real opportunity. This is an insult.

Uphold the dignity of the Filipino caregivers.

The Senators of the Republic of the Philippines will defend the Filipino caregivers.

JUNK JPEPA!

Nurses, students call for junking JPEPA, say they're not tradable goods

2007-10-04T21:33:00.000+08:00

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.

Nurses, students call for junking JPEPA,
say they’re not tradable goods

Saying they are not tradable goods to be exported cheaply to Japan, some two hundred nurses and nursing students trooped today to the Senate to protest the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), which the senators are discussing for the fourth in a series of pre-ratification hearings.

Dean Edward Malzan of the College of Nursing of Colegio de San Lorenzo in Quezon City, spokesperson for the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA), said that the nurses and nursing students are taking issue with what they see as inequitable and insecure terms under which Filipino nurses would be allowed to work in Japan through a preferential trade agreement.

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.

“JPEPA is primarily an agreement to facilitate the movement of tradable goods,” said Malzan. “But nurses are people whose welfare and security we need to consider before we send them abroad.”

Malzan said that the JPEPA left out essential labor safeguards for the practice of Filipino nurses in Japan. Filipino nurses are very likely to end up as mere trainees and be integrated into Japan’s notorious trainee system, under which foreign workers perform equal work as Japanese nationals but receive significantly lesser pay.

Under the JPEPA, a Filipino nurse who has passed the Philippine Licensure Exam and has three years of work experience is qualified to go to Japan, but has to undergo six months of language training in Japan. He or she will also be given three years to hurdle the licensure exam in Japanese while training under the supervision of a Japanese nurse. Failure in passing the Japanese exam means the Filipino nurse would have to go back to the Philippines.

In a protest tableau, the protesters showed a group of nurses closely packed into a wooden crate labeled “JPEPA EXPORT TO JAPAN: FOR ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION.”

At the same time the protesters were picketing the Senate gates, Leah Paquiz, president of the PNA, was testifying during the hearing being conducted by the Committee on Foreign Relations to discuss the provisions of the JPEPA relating to the movement of natural persons.

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.
In a statement delivered to the Senate, Paquiz said that the unnecessarily stringent requirements of the JPEPA will effectively relegate the Filipino nurse as a contractual second-class trainee in Japan, with a status inferior to that of a Japanese nurse.

She lamented the fact that Japan gave better terms to Indonesian nurses in the Japan-Indonesia Economic Partnership Agreement (JIEPA). Under the JIEPA, an Indonesian nurse with only three years of professional education and with only two years of work experience is qualified to go to Japan. In contrast, a Filipino nurse is required four years of professional education and three years work experience to qualify under the JPEPA.

“In our opposition to the JPEPA, we are fighting for the dignity and professionalism of the Filipino nurse. The Filipino nurse is just as competent as her Japanese and Indonesian peers. If Japan truly needs our services, then it must give us the same treatment and professional courtesy that we get from the rest of the world,” added Dr. Paquiz.

Paquiz added that even the Japanese Nursing Association (JNA) itself vigorously opposes the entry of Filipino nurses abroad. “Why should we insist on going to a place where we are not wanted when there are other countries where we are wanted and that offer more attractive compensation?” asked Paquiz.

The JNA in an official statement earlier said that there is no shortage of nurses in Japan and that the Japanese government must first address the problems of the nursing industry there before allowing the entry of foreign nurses.

More photos:

All photos by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.

Bawal Magtapon Dito

2007-09-30T13:48:00.000+08:00

JPEPA Side Notes on the Toxic Wastes Issue: Can we now sleep well at night?

Fact, there is no national law or international agreement that demands the inclusion of toxic and nuclear wastes in any country’s schedule of tradable goods. Not even the WTO requires this. There are, however, national and international laws that prohibits the trade of toxic wastes.

Fact, a former DENR secretary opposed the inclusion of toxic wastes in the JPEPA. In the 2003 Working Draft of the JPEPA, toxic wastes were clearly stricken out of the actual page of JPEPA itself.[2]

And yet, these globally repugnant and prohibited wastes nevertheless found their way back into the JPEPA. In previous Senate hearings, the pro-JPEPA government panel resorted to dishonest strategies to mislead the Filipino people. They attributed predictions of JPEPA-created jobs, to authors Cororaton and Kawasaki, when in fact no such conclusions were made by these authors. They failed to explain why the Philippines surrendered the right to require Japanese investors to transfer technology and to hire a given level of Filipino nationals.

In last Thursday’s hearing, September 27, 2007, on environmental issues, the strategy remained fully utilized. The pro-JPEPA government panel adopted this line of reasoning: the Philippines can include toxic wastes in the JPEPA despite clear restriction on trade of these wastes in existing national and international laws because, anyway, the Philippines have clear national and international laws that prevent the entry of these goods. Very little is required to see the absence of logic behind the government’s argument.

The government panel also waved the banner of their so-called protective side notes issued by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan. Below is an actual snapshot of this side note. It can be downloaded from the official website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan: [http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/economy/fta/philippines.html] – file description: Foreign Ministers’ Letters on the Signing of the JPEPA. This file cannot be found on the website of our own DTI and DFA.

The side notes do not add any new commitments from Japan. It does not require Japan to reduce its toxic waste generation. It does not require Japan to increase spending for greater customs enforcement against toxic waste exports. The side notes leave much of the burden on policing toxic wastes to the Philippines. This is the status quo, wrapped in a new package.

The side notes also bear the same commitments that allow Japan to export 197,500 tons of toxic incinerator ash to Thailand in 2006, 70 toxic end-of-life vessels to India from 2003 to 2006, among others. These are the same commitments that are riddled with loopholes that Japan continues to exploit.

The side notes are not enough. It covers only toxic wastes. What about Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) such as CFCs, Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) such as DDT, Nuclear materials and wastes, which the JPEPA considers tradable goods? At the end of the day, is the diplomatic exchange of notes or side notes enough to defend our environment and our right to health?

Should we Filipinos just hope that Japan will not dump toxic and hazardous wastes in the Philippines?

Hope is not a strategy.

JUNK JPEPA!

Ratify the Basel Ban Amendment!

Enact National Toxic Waste Import Bans!

-------------

Senate Rejection of JPEPA seen. Read here.

Post-hearing report. Read here.

[2] See pages 16-17. Can be downloaded from http://pascn.pids.gov.ph/jpepa/ (lower right hand corner: JPEPA),

Environment Experts Shoot Down JPEPA at Senate Inquiry

2007-09-28T20:30:00.000+08:00

Photo byGigie Cruz/Gaia.

Environment Experts Shoot Down JPEPA at Senate Inquiry
Trade Pact Weakens Philippine Protection against Japan's Toxic Shipments

Manila, 27 September 2007. Environment experts today continued to expose the unacceptable toxic waste trade provisions under the Japan Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) as the Senate took a closer scrutiny at the treaty's health and environmental repercussions.

The groups, which include Basel Action Network, EcoWaste Coalition, Greenpeace and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, working under the banner 'Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition,' revealed Japan's on-going illegal toxic shipments throughout Asia, and reiterated how JPEPA weakens Philippine measures to prevent Japanese toxic waste from ending up in our shores by creating strong economic incentives for their trade.

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.
In time with the Senate inquiry, over 200 protesters gathered outside the Senate gates to depict their outrage over Japan's intent to send toxic wastes to the Philippines and to call on the Senate to reject the JPEPA. The protesters erected a mock pirate ship laden with wastes carried by the toxic tsunami wave coming from Japan. Above the mock pirate vessel a banner was unfurled exclaiming 'Ahoy, Pinoys! JPEPA: Toxic to Health and Environment.'

"Japan has a record of shipping all sorts of hazardous waste to different countries in Asia. The toxic wastes Japan has been exporting are the same toxic wastes Japan insists on getting zero tariffs under JPEPA," said Atty. Richard Gutierrez of the Basel Action Network, Asia-Pacific (BAN AP), one of the environmental groups invited before the Senate. "The export data from Asia proves our point that Japan's promise not to export toxic wastes is empty, and that its real intent is to use the Japanese Economic Partnership Agreements to facilitate toxic waste colonization of the Philippines and Asia."

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.
Atty. Gutierrez cited data from Thailand, India, China, and Hong Kong showed large amounts of toxic and other wastes were moving out of Japan and exported to these places, legally and illegally. In India, for instance, Japan exported a total of 70 end-of-life vessels---containing many cancer-causing pollutants---for disposal from the years 2003 to 2006. In 2006, Japan dumped 195 million kilograms of toxic incinerator ash to Thailand, and illegally shipped 4,000 tons of Japanese contaminated municipal waste to China. China and Hong Kong customs officials were also recently able to intercept large quantities of Japanese toxic wastes, such as contaminated municipal wastes and electronic wastes or e-waste, even though they were misdeclared as mixed scrap or plastic wastes.

According to Greenpeace, the country's current regulations against the entry of such toxic shipments are hopelessly inadequate. Toxic waste can still be shipped to our shores if they are declared recyclable, an excuse that hazardous waste traders fully exploit. Neither Japan nor the Philippines have ratified the Basel Ban Amendment, an international treaty which protects developing countries from toxic waste dumping by developed nations under the guise of recycling. Additionally, JPEPA supports radioactive waste trade which is not covered under the Basel Convention.

"Recycling hazardous waste produces equally hazardous waste residues, and Filipino workers and communities end up bearing the costs. JPEPA--which legalizes and eliminates tariffs on shipments of poisonous trash, and even dangerous radioactive waste--fully supports this atrocious practice to the detriment of the health and well-being of Filipinos. There is no sound economic reason, no plausible or credible explanation, why the entry of poisonous and radioactive waste into our shores should be something that our country should welcome," said Greenpeace Southeast Asia Campaigns Director Von Hernandez.

Meanwhile, the EcoWaste Coalition raised the lack of capacity of the Philippines to deal with its own domestic waste. Citing the dismal failure of the National Solid Waste Management Commission to shut down the 677 open dumps and 343 controlled dumps that should all have been closed and rehabilitated as required by the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, the Philippines is in no shape to take in foreign wastes.

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.
"Hope is not a strategy. Hoping that Japan will not dump toxic waste on us will not stop them from doing so," said Marie Marciano of the EcoWaste Coalition, adding that "The Philippines needs to take concrete steps to protect itself--reject the JPEPA in its present form, and close the loopholes in its waste laws by enacting a total prohibition against toxic waste imports by immediately ratifying the Basel Ban Amendment."

For more information: http://junkjpepa.blogspot.com.

Richard Gutierrez, Basel Action Network, Asia-Pacific, in Manila at: Tel. No. +63 02 929 1635; e-mail: rgutierrez@ban.org

Von Hernandez, Greenpeace Southeast Asia, in Manila at: Tel: +63 917 5263050; e-mail: von.hernandez@dialb.greenpeace.org

Marie Marciano, EcoWaste Coalition, in Manila at: Tel: 9290376; email: marie_marciano@yahoo.com.

Note:

1. Additionally, a recent report prepared by BAN, EcoWaste Coalition and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives has raised the alert about the potential influx of CRT-based TV sets from Japan when TV systems in Japan are fully converted into HDTV digital systems in 2011. An estimated 64 million TVs with lead and other hazardous components are to become obsolete and likely to find their way to the Philippines and other countries under the guise of recyclable wastes or used goods should JPEPA be ratified.

2. The Basel Ban Amendment prohibits the export of all toxic wastes, for any reason whatsoever, either for disposal or recycling, from rich or developed countries like Japan, to poorer countries. The amendment was proposed back in 1995 in order to address the recycling loophole that has plagued the Basel Convention ever since its adoption in 1989. The Basel Ban Amendment has been ratified by almost all developed nations and is awaiting the requisite number of ratifications for it to enter into force of international law. The Philippines and Japan have not yet ratified the Amendment.

More photos:

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.

Photo by Gigie Cruz/GAIA.

Pro-JPEPA numbers: Misleading the Nation

2007-09-21T22:10:00.000+08:00

Notes from the Senate hearing on Economics: September 20, 2007.

In today's hearing, representatives from the government panel that is defending the JPEPA refused to admit and even address specific and clear issues raised by the Magkaisa JUNK JPEPA Coalition as regards the basis of their rosy projections for the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement.

The Coalition hereby reiterates these points:

1. "The Japanese side provided studies of macroeconomic impact of JPEPA."

This is an actual quote from page 7 of the JPEPA Joint Coordinating Team Report, December 2003.

We expect a clear answer from the pro-JPEPA government panel. For such a comprehensive treaty that will partly define the future of the Filipino people, why did we not come up with our own studies? Should we just accept Erlinda Medalla's explanation during the hearing that "we don't have the money" to do the study? Surely, the future of this country deserves more than that kind of explanation. Or is it because our own studies predicted only a 0.09% increase in GDP versus the rosy Japanese prediction of 1.73%-3.03%?

On the same report, the papers written by Prof. Kenichi Kawasaki and Profs. Urata and Kiyota, are specifically enumerated.Urata and Kiyota concluded that JPEPA would accelerate Philippines' GDP growth rate by 0.04% annually (see page 7 of the JPEPA Joint Coordinating Team Report)

On the same report, there is no mention of the paper by Dr. Caesar Cororaton entitled: Philippine-Japan Bilateral Agreements: Analysis of Possible Effects on Unemployment, Distribution, and Poverty in the Philippines using CGE-Microsimulation Approach.This paper is part of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement Research Project by our own Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS). If this paper is not as accurate as Medalla explained during the hearings, shouldn't the Philippine negotiators have commissioned another study instead of simply adopting the results of the Japanese studies?

It is a fact that the JPEPA Joint Coordinating Team Report was released in December 2003. Dr. Cororaton's paper had its first complete draft on the same month. Yet, his paper was not at all cited in the JPEPA Joint Coordinating Team Report as one of the studies for which the JPEPA is based.

2. We also do not understand why Erlinda M. Medalla kept on attacking the reliability of Dr. Cororaton's conclusion that the JPEPA would negatively affect the agriculture sector (unemployment increases, wage decrease, contraction in the agriculture sector) and yet adopted what has been attributed as the Cororaton conclusion of a 0.09% increase in GDP if the Philippine Senate approves the JPEPA.

The Filipino public must also be informed that the figure of 0.09% does not appear in the entire paper of Dr. Caesar Cororaton. Erlinda Medalla admitted that the figure cannot be found on the paper and attempted to explain by saying something about her "getting the difference" between two things that were not at all clear to those present in the hearing.Why she would make conclusions of a paper that is not even hers was not explained. Why Dr. Cororaton himself has never appeared with Medalla in the Senate hearings is also unclear. Even if Medalla's conclusions would appear correct, this would not change the fact that page 7 of the JPEPA Joint Coordinating Team Report of 2003 states that only "the Japanese side provided studies of macroeconomic impact of JPEPA."

3. The DTI, through Thomas Aquino, has been giving inconsistent numbers as regards the JPEPA's contribution to job creation.

November 7, 2006 (before the Committees on Trade and Commerce, and Economic Affairs: 35, 477 jobs [2007-2016]
August 7, 2007 (before the LEDAC): 22, 120 jobs-744, 715 jobs
Today's hearing: 221,000 jobs

To the pro-JPEPA government panel: the Filipino people do not deserve "sketchy" and "fuzzy" explanations for a treaty that will partly define our future.

We deserve better.
JUNK JPEPA.

-----
Santiago sees "dead" JPEPA if gov't won't explain benefits. Veronica Uy.Inquirer.net

-----
The actual papers can also be downloaded from the following websites:
1. Joint Coordinating Team Report (December 2003)- here.
2. Kawasaki paper- here.
3. Cororaton paper- here.

---
If you wish to get copies of all the papers via email, pls send us a note at magkaisa.junkjpepa(at)gmail(dot)com.

Videos: Senate Hearing on the Economic Issues of the JPEPA, 20 Sept. 2007

2007-09-20T23:59:00.001+08:00

Atty. Golda Benjamin, Legal Counsel, Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition:

"This is not a college project where i can do chapter one and you can do chapter two. This is a mega treaty which will define part of our future, part of the course of this nation."

Video by Marnie Dolera/GAIA-EcoWaste Coalition.

Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, Chair, Committee on Foreign Affairs:

"I will not be able to defend this on the Senate floor because you're not giving me enough arguments. If you think this is tough, you should watch the Senate debate. If I find it impossible to defend the Senate on the basis of your statements, then, as Chair, I will be compelled to defer filing my committee report. In other words, the treaty will be dead."

Video by Marnie Dolera/GAIA-EcoWaste Coalition.

JPEPA EQUALS ECONOMIC HARA-KIRI

2007-09-20T22:35:00.000+08:00

JPEPA EQUALS ECONOMIC HARAKIRI

Photo by Marnie Dolera/GAIA-EcoWaste Coalition

20 September 2007, Manila, Philippines. - A group of some 250 workers, farmers, fisherfolk, environmentalists, and fair trade advocates from the Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition (MJJC) trooped to the Senate complex today to keep vigil as the Senate held its 2^nd round of hearings on the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA). The Senate is scheduled to tackle the economic issues of JPEPA today .

MJJC advocates picketed the Senate wearing bayongs over their head, in a direct reference to graphic images of the 2^nd World War wherein Filipinos who collaborated with the Japanese covered their heads to conceal their identities, as they sentenced their fellow compatriots to death at the hands of the Japanese imperial army. The Coalition said that DTI Undersecretary and chief JPEPA negotiator Tomas G. Aquino, DTI Secretary Peter Favila, and Philippine Ambassador to Japan Domingo Siason were the “New Makapili”, willing accomplices to the demise of Philippine industry and the death of the livelihoods and jobs of thousands of Filipino workers, farmers, and fisherfolk at the hands of Japanese government and corporate interests.

Photo by Marnie Dolera/GAIA-EcoWaste Coalition.

The Coalition questioned the conflicting economic projections and figures presented by the government panel, pointing out that the studies conducted by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) had been conducted years before the start of the actual JPEPA negotiations, and in all likelihood did not correspond with the final outcome of the negotiations. The Coalition called for objective, realistic, coherent economic assessments based on the concessions given and the final text of the treaty. They cautioned that any studies conducted on any other basis would be sheer speculation and should be disregarded by the Senate as immaterial and irrelevant to the proceedings.

The Coalition also questioned the entire concept of trickle-down economics which is at the heart of the JPEPA. As stated by the PIDS in various fora, the main beneficiaries of the JPEPA will be export-oriented industries, agri-business ventures dealing in high-value or so-called “cash crops”, selected service providers, and the retirement industry. The Coalition pointed out that it was highly unlikely that these limited sectors could be responsible for the projected “dynamic growth” under JPEPA, and chided the government for not involving the rest of the population in economic activity and economic growth.

The Coalition also pointed out that given the premise of trickle-down economics, it would be highly unlikely that any significant poverty alleviation would take place under the JPEPA. Contrary to the government’s assertion that any kind of growth would contribute to poverty alleviation, the Coalition pointed out World Bank, UNDP, and ADB studies that show that growth that increases the gap between rich and poor can actually worsen poverty. JPEPA will tend to increase the divide between the have’s and the have-not’s.

“If the Philippine Senate decides to approve the JPEPA despite the overwhelming evidence that this treaty will be disastrous to the Philippine economy, this will be nothing less than economic hara-kiri,” said Atty. Golda Benjamin, lead counsel for the Coalition.

Photo by Marnie Dolera/GAIA-EcoWaste Coalition.

The Japanese cannot be faulted for watching out and pushing for their interests; that is to be expected and is in fact admirable about the Japanese people. What is unforgivable is that our own kababayan watch out for the interests of the Japanese instead of our own, and give away the future of our country and our children.

For all its pretenses at being an “economic partnership” agreement, the JPEPA is really a partnership between unequals, and a repressive agreement that sacrifices the long-term economic development, and ultimately the dignity and sovereignty of the Filipino people. It is nothing less than economic treason. We must label it for what it truly is, and those responsible for such a reprehensible agreement must be made to answer to the Filipino people.

More pictures:

Photos by Marnie Dolera/GAIA-EcoWaste Coalition.