Saturday, March 08, 2008

JPEPA

JPEPA: Too Much for too Little

We, the individual and organizational members of the Magkaisa JUNK JPEPA Coalition (MJJC), sincerely seek your support in the ongoing struggle to convince the Philippine Senate to disapprove the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).

It is a discriminatory, unconstitutional, and unfair treaty that threatens the freedom and sovereignty of the Filipino people.

For the following reasons, the JPEPA, in its current form, must be rejected:

1. The JPEPA was negotiated in secrecy. The Filipino people were denied of their right to information and participation in matters of public interest. Members of the House of Representatives, together with civil society organizations had to file a Supreme Court case in order to get a copy of the JPEPA. A copy was released only after it was signed by the President in September 2006.

2. The JPEPA grants national treatment to the Japanese and yet the Philippine negotiators made very scant reservations or exceptions to that commitment. As a result:

· The JPEPA allows foreign ownership of Philippine private lands in all sectors except manufacturing and services. If Japanese investors wish to engage in real estate development, agribusiness, and other similar ventures, they can now own private lands in the country. This is a crime against Filipino farmers who continue to suffer and die in the fight to own the very lands that they till.

· The JPEPA allows corporations with 40% Japanese capital to engage in deep-sea fishing activities together with the Philippine government via joint venture agreements, production-sharing agreements or production-sharing agreements; a violation of the Constitutional rule which reserves the utilization and enjoyment of the nation’s marine wealth to Filipino citizens.

3. Toxic, hazardous, and nuclear wastes are included in the Philippines’ list of tradable goods; a clear violation of national laws and the Basel Convention.

During the negotiations, the DENR wrote the DTI asking it to exclude these wastes from the list. These items were specifically stricken out in the 2003 Working Draft of the JPEPA. Yet, these wastes found their way back into the actual text of the treaty.

JPEPA proponents say that these wastes had to be included because these are part of the Harmonised System (HS). However, they conveniently do not mention the fact that aside from illegally including these wastes in the listing, the rates in the HS were not merely copied; majority was reduced to zero.

4. In Article 93 of the JPEPA, the Philippines waived its right to require Japanese investors to transfer technology to their Filipino partners. The Philippines also surrendered the right to require Japanese investors to hire a given level of Filipinos. This voluntary surrender of rights has not been done by Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. Even Singapore refused to surrender its right to require Japanese investors to “appoint, as executives, managers or members of boards of directors, individuals of any particular nationality,” including those of its own.

5. Our Philippine negotiators restricted the law-making powers of the Congress by merely indicating provisions of current laws in our reservations for future measures. Japan and other ASEAN countries reserved the right to make any law or measure to protect its industries.

6. Article 4 of the JPEPA requires the Philippines to “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." This provision does not exist in Japan's agreements with Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. This provision also did not exist in the 2003 Working Draft of the JPEPA.

7. For the Filipino nurses, the JPEPA classifies them as nurse trainees, relegated to the bottom of the Japan’s nursing system. They will be paid $400 a month in a country where the average cost of living is $1,000.

Filipino nurses will be required to learn the language and work; giving them only 1 year to pass the language exam and the nursing board exam. Japan, not both countries, has the discretion to extend their contracts for 2 more years.

While nurses from Indonesia are required only 2 years of work experience and a 3-year nursing course without a national licensure exam, 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 national licensure exam.

8. In trade in goods, JPEPA is clearly lopsided in favor of Japanese agricultural and industrial products. The Philippines will drastically eliminate tariffs on agricultural products except for rice (5 tariff lines) and salt (1 tariff line). On the other hand, Japan was able to exclude 651 tariff lines from tariff reduction.

The government boasts of easier market access for electronics, furnitures, and automotive parts. It is not true. Even without the JPEPA, these products already enter Japan duty-free. JPEPA will not change anything. For garments, the Philippines cannot take advantage of the duty-free provision because our raw materials do not come primarily from Japan or any of the ASEAN countries as required by the JPEPA.

9. Article 27 and its implementing guidelines opens up the market for the importation of used four wheeled vehicles; a clear violation of Executive Order 156. The Annex speaks of negotiations on the issue of market access; a contractual obligation to negotiate on a matter that is clearly unlawful.

This provision does not exist in Japan's agreements with Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. This provision also did not exist in the 2003 Working Draft of the JPEPA. This commitment is a serious threat to local automotive industry.

10. Contrary to the administration’s claim that JPEPA will spur economic growth for the entire country, one of the studies conducted on the JPEPA by our own Philippine Institute for Development Studies, a non-stock, non-profit government research institution, concludes that with JPEPA, “agriculture wages decline” and “unemployment rate in agriculture labor deteriorates.”

The JPEPA is but the first in a long line of free trade and economic partnership agreements currently being negotiated by the Philippines, and it will set the stage for all future trade and investment agreements. If we cannot strategically defend our interests in this treaty, what kind of future can we promise to the Filipino people?

The Executive branch’s insistence that JPEPA be concurred with because the Philippines cannot afford "to miss the boat" as the other Asian countries are negotiating "similar" economic partnership agreements with Japan, is a misleading threat. 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.

The only decision that is pro-Filipino, pro-Philippines is clear: JUNK JPEPA!

For the sake of our lands. Our seas. Our freedom. Our lives.

Contact:

Magkaisa JUNK JPEPA Coalition

magkaisa.junkjpepa@gmail.com

http://junkjpepa.blogspot.com

+632 436 5470

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