[asia-apec 28] APEC Watch #7

[daga]

APEC WATCH #7
July 1996
A publication of the ad hoc International Convenors Committee of the
November MANILA PEOPLE'S FORUM ON APEC '96


SUMMARY REPORT
Philippine PO-NGO Summit on APEC
04-05 July 1996
ISO,  Ateneo de Manila University
Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Philippines

The Philippine Hosting Committee of the Manila People's Forum on APEC 1996
sponsored the Philippine PO-NGO Summit on APEC on 04-05 July. The Conference
was held at the Institute of Social Order, Ateneo de Manila University,
Loyola Heights, Quezon City. More than 300 representatives of
non-government and people's organizations, the academic community and even
part of the business sector representing small and medium entrepreneurs
attended the forum. Despite the emergence of several contentious issues and
concerns, the Conference was a success. The biggest and clearest indication
of this success was the drafting of the Summit Statement that captures the
complexity of peoples' sentiments on the APEC. (See Box.)

The opening session of the Conference featured three speeches. Hon. Wigberto
Tanada, member of the Lower House of the Philippine Congress, cited the
inadequacy in the Philippine government's handling of the APEC process, not
least of which is the lack of transparency and absence of consultation with
the people. Dr. Walden Bello, chair of the International Convenors
Committee, decried APEC's vision of fast-tracking liberalization because it
does not really serve the interest of the Philippines and the Filipino
people. Ms. Eva dela Merced of the Broad Initiative for Negros Development
(BIND) criticized the insensitivity of the liberalization agenda to women's,
especially peasant women's, concerns and its inability to address the
question of sustainable agriculture.

The Conference held five separate workshops on the different issue clusters
of (1) ecology and environment, (2) labor and migrant rights, (3) people's
rights, (4) democratization and governance, and (5) social and economic
development. The workshops served as the basis for the formulation of the
Philippine PO-NGO critique and agenda on the APEC.

The Philippine PO-NGO stand on the APEC was discussed in plenary. A number
of ideas were raised, and although the Conference was not able to resolve
every one of these, there was great promise that the process of discussion
will continue. Following are some of the major issues discussed:

(A) General Stance on the APEC

How do Philippine POs and NGOs view APEC? What should be the approach to
APEC? The consensus was to oppose but at the same time engage APEC towards
the pursuit of alternative regional cooperation and development.
Specifically, the Conference registered its opposition to the economic
philosophy espoused by, and the overall model of development embodied in the
APEC. However, the Conference recognized the need to engage the APEC as well
as the government if POs and NGOs are to effectively forward their
criticisms, analyses, and concrete alternatives to APEC.

The different sentiments can be summarized as follows:

1. There is need to pursue genuine people to people cooperation even outside
the APEC processes.
2. Peoples should develop alternatives to the APEC.
3. The US' role in fast-tracking the liberalization agenda within the APEC
must be exposed.
4. The  government should be held accountable for the untransparent
processes of the APEC.	
5. Stress should be given on the  negative effects of APEC on peoples.
6. There is need for information campaign on the evils of mindless
liberalization.
7. POs and NGOs should link with business and civil society in the pursuit
of genuine development.

(B) Elements and Principles of Alternative Development Model

The Conference agreed that for development to be meaningful, the following
elements must be present: 

1. sustainability, equity and gender equity
Development should respond to human needs and should promote prople's
rights. Genuine development implies that people have effective control over
resources, and that people are able to actively and effectively participate
in the development process. Development should also ensure that priorities
are determined by the people, and that various sectors get their fair share
of its fruits. Development should be reflective of and responsive to
existing conditions. It should be sustainable not only for the present
generation but for future generations as well. Development should be gender
fair - responsive to the needs of, and must recognize the contributions of
women.

2. respect for and protection of  people's and human rights
Indigenous people's rights and the ancestral domain issues should be
addressed. NGOs should be included at all levels of the process, and
consultations with affected sectors is a must before any project can
proceed. The right to self-determination is not limited to political but
spans social and economic rights as well.

3. There should be a recognition of interdependence of countries,
communities and peoples. 
Moves for regional cooperation should not only be for trade, but should
include other points of concern and cooperation including labor laws and
environmental issues.

(C) The Role of the State
What should be the role of the state in the development process? The state
has many roles that include the following:

1.	formulation of development plans and policies
2.	promotion and safeguard of people's welfare including delivery of basic
services
3.	responsibility to promote genuine people's participation
4.	defense of people against the ravages of market forces
5.	protection of the national patrimony and sovereignty
6.	recognition and implementation of pro-people international covenants

(D) Principles to Guide Regional Cooperation

1. Cooperation, not competition, should constitute the principal aspect of
economic relation between countries.
2. Fair trade, not free trade.
3. Subsidiarity, localization and decentralization
4. Local self-sufficiency/encouraging communities to produce
5. Principal reliant on local rather than foreign resources
6. Moves towards regional cooperation should be based on  common concerns
e.g., common Labor Code, common Environmental Code.
7. Peoples' and communities' (and not corporation's) control over trade/
8. Mutually beneficial interdependence of and solidarity among peoples


In sum, the Conference position hinges on three elements: (1) the opposition
to the transformation of APEC into a free trade bloc; (2) the opposition to
the undemocratic and untransparent processes of the APEC; and (3) the
opposition to the Ramos government's emerging role in the transformation of
APEC as a free trade bloc.

A day after the Conference, a press briefing was held at the Philippine
Social Science Center Building in Diliman, Quezon City. 

The compiled documentation of the July 04-05 Philippine PO-NGO Summit and
the Philippine agenda will be out by the second week of September. This will
then be subject to another round of consultation with Philippine groups and
experts.


HIDDEN COSTS OF FREE TRADE
STATEMENT OF THE PHILIPPINE PO-NGO SUMMIT ON THE APEC

If the Ramos government is to be believed, APEC is nothing less than the
Philippines' ticket to economic salvation. With an all-too familiar
combination of bullish rhetoric and doomsday scenarios reminiscent of the
GATT-UR debates, government is plying the public with promises of
APEC-induced growth, jobs, and all-around prosperity. This, even as it warns
of economic isolation and stagnation should we fail to live up to APEC's
sweeping liberalization vision,  a vision that has been defined and
controlled by the US and Australia  from its inception. 

We, the people's organizations and development NGOs represented at this
summit--we who have felt and witnessed the grave human and ecological costs
brought on by the neoliberal framework that the APEC represents--beg to
differ. We know only too well what the freeing up of markets and investment
regimes implies. In its SAP and GATT guises, liberalization has meant the
marginalization of small farmers unable to compete with heavily-subsidized
produce and unable to defend their farmland from arbitrary land conversions
and agrarian reversals; the undermining of fisherfolk's rights over coastal
and marine resources; the trampling of indigenous and Moro peoples' rights
to self-determination and to their ancestral domain; the violent demolition
of urban poor communities and their dislocation from their homes and jobs;
the pawning of labor's rights to self-organization, decent wages and job
security in favor of the steady infusion of investments; the exodus of
Filipino men and women to  jobs abroad  peddled by the government itself.
The list goes on. All these costs are borne to a harsher degree by the
country's women, who not only bear the multiple burdens of poverty, but are
also unrecognized and discriminated upon in their efforts to assure their
and their families' survival. Its toll will also be felt to a deeper degree
by future generations, as its growth-at-all-costs framework heedlessly
extracts resources and plunders our ecosystems without regard for the future.

Stung by past experiences and continued marginalization of peoples whom we
seek to represent, we look with deep suspicion upon APEC's concept of
cooperation that is hinged on the establishment of an Asia Pacific free
trade regime by the year 2020. We reject  APEC and its anti-democratic,
unaccountable and untransparent processes. We are committed to engage APEC
and the Philippine government in our pursuit of genuine people to people
cooperation in the Asia Pacific region, and in our desire to put forward
concrete development alternatives that place highest value on the right to
self-determination, sustainability, equality, and economic, political,
social and gender equity and justice. We shall  continue to resist the
onslaught of economic liberalization against peoples and communities even as
we continue to build these alternatives.  

In this light, we call for changing the current  US-driven, market-led,
growth-oriented development strategy to one that  is centered on  people and
nature, and ensures equity and participation across genders, classes,
sectors, cultures, and generations. We aspire for nothing less than total
human and ecological development, one that does not divorce economic gains
from its social, political, ecological and cultural dimensions. 

We call for a new development path where women and men are empowered
participants and equal beneficiaries, through a framework that works for
equity,  food security and  ecological balance. We also call for fair trade,
socially-responsible investments, and genuine regional cooperation that
places communities and peoples at the core, and that upholds and respects
subsidiarity, local self-sufficiency and self-determination.  We urge the
use of alternative growth indicators such as the community net-worth in lieu
of the traditional measures of growth  in redefining development. 

We demand from the Asia-Pacific leaders  full adherence to the U.N.
Declaration on Human Rights; the immediate ratification of the
International Convention on Labor and Migrant Rights; and to advance genuine
people's rights and welfare in the region in the pursuit of  regional
cooperation. 
 
We demand government to promote and safeguard the people's welfare, and  to
assume the responsibility for   the efficient, effective and equitable
delivery of basic social services. We demand  government to protect and
uphold the national patrimony and sovereignty, to desist from being an
instrument of the US in its narrow interests in the region, and to  protect
and defend the people from the ravages of market forces. We demand
government to promote genuine and effective people's participation in the
formulation  of national development plans and policies that are
gender-specific, sustainable, just and equitable. We strongly condemn and
hold the Ramos government accountable for the massive APEC-driven,
anti-people campaign that has displaced peoples, communities and livelihood.    

We call upon people's movements,  in the Philippines,  Asia-Pacific, and
across the world, to join in unmasking the hidden costs of  the neoliberal
agenda being peddled by APEC and other instruments of  the global market. We
also urge peoples and communities to deepen their understanding of the
globalization process and its consequences, and to continue forging,
advocating and practicing alternative development paradigms that promote and
ensure equitable and sustainable development.

We commit ourselves to pursuing mutually beneficial interdependence of and
solidarity among peoples--be it with or without  APEC, in engagements with
government, through Congress or the courts, or in caravans and mobilizations
on the streets, and in movements within and across borders, in all forms of
just struggles.  We believe that the daunting challenges of globalization
and  the inexorable pace of development aggression demand no less.


INSIGHTS

RP's Blueprint for APEC: Roadmap to Prosperity?
by Dr. Walden Bello*

The Philippine Government's blueprint for its role in the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) is finally out, and the only one looking good is
the Asia Foundation.

Blueprint Funded by Asia Foundation

The Asia Foundation funded the research and writing that went into APEC and
Philippines: Catching the Next Wave to the tune of P350,000.  The Foundation
undoubtedly meant well, but why is a foreign funding agency underwriting the
production of the Philippine government's basic strategy towards APEC?  This
is a question that is bugging even some participants in the policy-making
process.  The reason does not have to do with the Asia Foundation seeking to
influence Philippine policy, says one of those intimately involved in the
enterprise, who refuses to be identified.  "The government should have paid
for the research," he says.  "But its priorities are wrong.  Government
money is going to the palabas and to the security of the APEC bigwigs rather
than to substantive stuff."

Launched at a Department of Foreign Affairs event featuring President Fidel
Ramos on Friday, June 21, the report is about five months late--to the
frustration of many people involved in the APEC process.  Even more
frustrating to them, the report is said to omit or distort many views
expressed during the National Preparatory Summit for APEC held on December
10, 1995, the resolutions of which were supposed to be the basis of the
policy paper.

But was the policy paper worth waiting for?

First, the positive side.  Perhaps the most solid essay is the one on "APEC
and Sustainable Development," which might be described as one long word of
caution about the threat to the environment posed by the sort of blanket
trade liberalization that is the core of APEC.  "With wrong incentives and
absence of the proper safeguards," it warns, "a liberal trade and investment
regime is equally likely to exert pressure to exploit or deplete resources
more rapidly than otherwise."

Unfortunately, the sustainable development chapter is a minority voice in a
book that otherwise celebrates the trade and investment liberalization that
APEC represents.

Where is Agriculture?  

But before the rest of the APEC blueprint is analyzed, it must be noted that
there is something very important missing, and that is the government's
policy on APEC and agriculture.  

This is, of course, a serious omission since agricultural liberalization has
been one of the main bones of contention in APEC.  Last year, the Osaka
Summit nearly foundered on the insistence by Japan, China, South Korea, and
Taiwan--with the informal backing of Indonesia and Malaysia--that
agriculture be excluded from the APEC liberalization agenda.  Does the
Philippine government back its neighbors?  Or does it back the US position
that APEC is a "GATT-plus arrangement"--that is, one that will initiate a
faster and more thoroughgoing liberalization of agriculture than what APEC
countries have committed themselves to under the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT)? 

It might be noted in this connection that the US is fairly transparent about
the reasons for its insistence that agricultural liberalization be central
to the APEC agenda:  the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
estimates that two-thirds of the global increase anticipated for farm
exports to the year 2000 will take place in the Asia-Pacific region, and it
wants to make sure that by that time this market, including the Philippines,
will absorb some 60 per cent of US agricultural exports, up from the already
large 40 per cent it accounts for currently.

IT: RP's Agenda or Microsoft's? 

The section on Information Technology is great on data but simply misleading
in its conclusions and downright irresponsible in its key recommendation to
"strictly enforce intellectual property rights."  To say that strict
adherence to and enforcement of "Intellectual Property Rights" will result
in the more rapid adoption of information technology (IT) and in a more
competitive IT industry in the Philippines is simply false.

Strict IPR enforcement will raise the price of software and computer
hardware, much of which is now affordable in the current looser IPR
enforcement regime.  For one thing, tight enforcement will radically raise
the costs of the government's data and information operations since, as
pointed out by, among others, the United States Trade Representative's
Office report on trade and intellectual property for 1996, the Philippine
government is currently one of the country's biggest users of unlicensed
software.  

Strict IPR enforcement will also act to dampen local innovation owing to the
royalty payments that innovators will have to pay US and Japanese
information giants like Microsoft or IBM for patented technologies that are
the building blocks of advances in software and hardware.  This is not
speculation:  Korean firms like Samsung and Hyundai have had their efforts
to innovate in integrated circuits blocked by the US firms Texas Instruments
and Intel's charges of intellectual piracy and demands for excessive royalty
payments.  

IPR enforcement is a US agenda, not a Philippine one, and perhaps one reason
it has been smuggled into the Philippine government position is that Bill
Gates' Viceroy to this country, Michael Hart, general manager of Microsoft
Philippines, made an aggressive input into the document.  Another reason is
also unstated:  the Philippines is coming up for review by the United States
Trade Representative's Office in October, and the government desperately
wants to leave Washington's "watch list" of IPR violators before the APEC
Summit.  

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Federico Macaranas and the other brains
behind the volume should just have been more honest and stated baldly that
the reason the government wants tighter IPR enforcement is that it faces US
trade sanctions otherwise, instead of trying to prove the impossible:  that
the higher IT costs this would entail would be a boost to the spread of IT
in this country.

Arming SMEs with Slingshots

Championing SMEs (small and medium enterprises) is a popular stance these
days.  The report adopts this posture, but it does a great disservice to the
SME sector by prescribing a cure that is likely to worsen its current
status.  Opening up to the winds of international competition via trade and
investment liberalization, it says, will work to the benefit of the SMEs.
This is hard to believe, since by the paper's own description, "Except for a
few SMEs at the international best practice frontier, the overwhelming
majority are characterized by low levels of productivity, stemming primarily
from the inadequate supply of complementary inputs of capital and skilled
human resources."  Moreover, entrepreneurial and managerial skills are in
short supply, "causing high death rates among SMEs."  
  
>From the experience of other economies, the key to survival of SMEs is
strong state support in the form of judicious protection against unfair
foreign competition and anti-monopoly action against unfair trading
practices by large local firms.  But this is precisely the sort of effective
"state intervention" that the proponents of trade and investment
liberalization in APEC would like to outlaw.  The report's
recommendations--providing SMEs training in business, access to information
technology, access to information about markets, and access to credit--are
tantamount to equipping them with slingshots in the rough and tumble world
of liberalized regional trade and investment dominated by aggressive
American, Japanese, and NIC conglomerates.

Mistaken Focus on Investment Code Liberalization

The key recommendation of the paper on investment is despite the
liberalization of the foreign investment code over the last ten years, it
still is not liberal enough to attract foreign investors.  Thus, retail
trade must be opened up to foreign investors, and negative lists, or lists
of industries in which foreign investors are banned or restricted, must be
scrapped.  And further measures must be taken to enhance the security of
"foreign land tenure."  The idea is to become the most friendly foreign
investment code in the Asia-Pacific, to come up with a code that would
basically give foreign investors "national treatment," or providing them
with equal rights as domestic investors.

The problem with this approach is that it simply is not true that the best
way to attract foreign investors is by giving them royal treatment.  Indeed,
a comparative look at our Asian neighbors shows that despite the fact that
they have had more restrictive foreign investment codes than the Philippines
over the last decade, they have nevertheless attracted far greater amounts
of investment than this country.  An examination of Japanese investment
patterns, for instance, reveals that between 1988 and 1993, $6.0 billion
went to Indonesia, $5.3 billion into Thailand, $4.2 billion into Malaysia,
and $2.2 billion into Taiwan.  Even South Korea, which US government sources
regularly denounce as having one the world's most restrictive investment
codes, if not the most illiberal one, got $2.1 billion, compared to the
Philippines' $1.1 billion over the same period.

The reason foreign investors favor an economy does not lie in the relative
liberality of its foreign investment code relative to others but elsewhere.
The report tries to prove its case by citing the complaints of foreign
investors, but foreign investors will always find cause to complain, even if
you have already given them the store--lock, stock, and barrel.  One
difference between Philippine and, say, Malaysian technocrats is that the
former take the foreign investors' bitching seriously while the latter take
them with a grain of salt.

The Go-It Alone Trade Lib Strategy: Stroke of Genius or Madness?

The core of the blueprint is the section of trade liberalization, and here
the government's stance is that whether or not our neighbors move toward
trade liberalization, the Philippines must continue inexorably on the path
of the trade reforms, to complete its program of unilateral liberalization
that will bring about a uniform tariff for all goods of five per cent by
2004.  To use the words of Dr.  Jesus Estanislao, the Filipino
representative to the (now disbanded) Eminent Persons' Group, the
Philippines must "bear the burden of APEC leadership by example."  Or as
President Ramos puts it, "We must blaze the trail that others must follow."

Brave words but pure bravado.  If our neighbors like Japan, Korea, Malaysia,
Indonesia, and China have been, in contrast to our government, so resistant
to the American-prescription of blanket liberalization, there is a reason
for this, and the reason is that state intervention in the area of
trade--which included both judicious protectionism when it came to the
domestic market and mercantilism (aggressively subsidizing their exporters)
when it came to international markets--has been a central reason for their
success.  It is this factor--the creative role of state intervention in
trade to correct the imperfections of the international market and give
one's exporters a leg up in international competition--that the introduction
to the blueprint deliberately overlooks when it ascribes the East Asian
industrialization experience solely to two sources:  markets and technology.

Visionaries are said to be either geniuses or madmen, and given the
realities of international economic realpolitik and the indispensability of
interventionist trade policy management in the experience of late
industrializers like our neighbors, the RP vision of "leading by example,"
of  "going it alone" even if our Asian neighbors do not dance to
Washington's siren song of liberalization is unlikely to be a stroke of
genius.  

This is the problem with technocrats who have not experienced what it takes
to develop and keep one's economy afloat in a harsh world where established
powers, like the United States, advance their corporations' interests by any
means possible, be it GATT, APEC or unilateral measures like Super 301, who
have no understanding of the role of power in international economic
transactions.   As an Asian economist once remarked to me, the difference
between Filipino economists and technocrats is that the Filipinos imbibe
Chicago School free trade theory as academics and try to implement it when
they get into government, whereas other Asian economists might praise free
trade when in the company of the Americans and Australians but, in practice,
they protect their economies like hell.
     
There is, however, one important APEC actor that will applaud the sentiments
and policy proposals of "APEC: Catching the Next Wave," and that is
Washington. For the proposals fall right into its game plan of having the
Ramos government, as host of the 1996 Summit, put back on track the US'
free trade agenda that was derailed by the Asian countries during the Osaka
APEC Summit last year.  []   
        
*Dr. Walden Bello is co-director of Focus on the Global South, and Chair of
the International Convenors Committee of the Manila People's Forum on APEC 1996.


ORGANIZING FOR NOVEMBER

International Convenors Committee s in HongKong

The following were taken from the official minutes of the June 27 ICC meeting.

Groups represented: Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA),
Asian Migrant Center (AMC), Asia Monitor Resource Center (AMRC), APEC Labor
Rights Monitor (ALARM), Asian Center for the Progress of Peoples (ACPP),
Asian Students Association (ASA), Christian Conference for Asia (CCA) -
Urban Rural Mission, CCA - Indochina Concerns, CCA-International Affarirs,
Committee for Asian Women (CAW), Documentation for Action Groups in Asia
(DAGA), Red Mexicana Accion Frente Al Libre Comercio (RMALC), Asia Pacific
Workers Solidarity Links (APWSL), Peoples' Plan for Twenty-First Century
(PP21), World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) - Asia Pacific, Philippine
Hosting Committee (PHC)

Major decisions taken:

1. It was decided unanimously that Dr. Walden Bello be the chair of the ICC.
The body also expressed confidence in the Secretariat in Manila composed of
ANGOC and FOCUS.

2. It was decided that though the responsibility of selecting delegates was
the task of the ICC, a committee will have to take the responsibility.
Following the recommendations of the ICC Secretariat in Manila, the
following committees were constituted. Other ICC groups are invited to join
any committee/s.

Selection Committee: 	AMRC, PARC, RMALC, FOCUS, ANGOC, 
DAGA, US Working Group, PHC 
Programme Committee:	ARENA, APWSL, PHC
Documentation Committee: DAGA/Interdoc-Asia, FOCUS, ALARM, ANGOC, PHC	

3. It was agreed that the list of overseas participants finalised by the
Selection Committee will be forwarded to the PHC. The PHC will go over the
list and if there are disagreements, these will be sorted out mutually.
Before the list is sent to PHC, it will be circulated to the ICC convenors.
	
4. The following selection criteria were adopted. The task is to maintain a
proper balance between the criteria.
	
a. Gender - fifty percent of participants must be women.
b. Regional, sub-regional, country, international and regional organizations
c. Programmatic - groups dealing with APEC issues, concerns and related
programmes and those involved in the five issue clusters
d. PO-NGO balance - trade unions, indigenous peoples, fisherfolk
	
It was also decided that if there would be tough choices to be made, the
priority would be letter c (programmatic criteria). This would be the bottom
line.

5. It was observed that treating some participants as delegates and others
as observers goes against the spirit of the Kyoto Declaration. The
parameters laid down by APEC should be resisted. The meeting therefore
strongly suggests that all NGO and PO participants from other countries
outside the APEC region, especially South Asia, would also be delegates. The
exception to this would be representative  of funding agencies and media who
would be observers.
	
6. To parallel APEC's "Eminent Persons' Group," it was decided to create a
similar group within the PFA. Some persons suggested include Dr. Walden
Bello, Dr. John Cavanagh, Jane Kelsey, Vandana Shiva, and others. This group
would be asked to come up with the people's alternative model of regional
cooperation.
	
7. It was also decided that HongKong groups take the initiative in promoting
the PFA through the media in HongKong and strategise with them. Rex Varona
of AMC was nominated to take the lead.
	
8. It was decided that HongKong groups as members of the ICC will make
submissions for funding using the proposal that the PHC has prepared. June
Rodriguez of the PHC will make the proposal available to HongKong groups.


OPEN INVITATION
Manila People's Forum on APEC 1996
"Fair  Trade and Sustainable Development:
Agenda for Regional Cooperation"

This November, representatives from non-government organizations, people's
organizations and social movements across the Asia Pacific will converge in
Manila. This gathering is an effort to focus the attention of the
international community-particularly the member-countries of the Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)-on the need to reflect the people's
concerns for human rights, gender, social equity and environmental
sustainability in the APEC agenda. Dubbed the 1996 People's Forum on the
APEC, the Manila conference is the continuation of the initiative started in
Kyoto in 1995 to provide a parallel process of peoples, communities and
sectors affected by the free trade and economic integration agenda
represented by the APEC.
	
We expect 500 participants and (international and local) observers to the
Manila People's Forum on APEC '96 (MPFA '96). Selection of the international
participants to MPFA '96 are based on the following guidelines:

·	Participants shall be determined according to the  major issue clusters:
people's rights, labor and migrant rights, economic and social development,
ecology and environment, democratization and governance, gender and women in
development. In the selection of participants, country-, issue-, and
gender-balance will be observed.
	
·	Country Convenors  or Advisory Commitee will process nominations. The
International Convenors Committee (ICC) will  process nominations for
groups/individuals from countries where no Convenors/Advisory committee
exists, and for regional and international organizations. The Philippine
Hosting Committee (PHC), and the Country Committees will finalize the list
of delegates.
	
·	The PHC will issue formal invitations  to the participants starting
August. Invitations are signed by PHC Chair Mr. Horacio Morales, Coordinator
Mr. Romeo Royandoyan and Ms. June Rodriguez, and ICC Chair Dr. Walden Bello.
	
·	A special subsidy scheme is being arranged to cover part of (if not fully)
the travel expenses of delegates coming from developing economies.
Participants coming from developed economies like the United States, Canada,
New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan  and South Korea will be requested to shoulder
travel expenses to the Philippines.
	
·	A registration fee of  US$200 each will be charged for foreign
participants. This will cover accommodation, internal travel, and conference
materials.

·	MPFA '96 will allot seats for  local and international observers, to
include the media and individuals in the academe and other professions.
International observers will shoulder their own travel and internal expenses
in the Philippines.

Calendar of Activities
15-24 November 1996

I. ASIA PACIFIC PRE-FORUM CONFERENCES 
	(15-20 November)

A. 	Pre-forum Conference on Women and Development (15-16 November)
B.	Exposure Trips and Community Integration (18 November)
C. 	Four simultaneous Pre-forum Conferences on the major issue clusters
prior to the Forum Proper will be held on 19-20 November.  These are:

1. Pre-forum Conference on People's Rights and Democratization, to include
the concerns of indigenous peoples, women, and other rights abuse victims;
the conference will raise the issue of government transparency and
accountability, and will push for increased participation for grassroots
groups, NGOs and civil society movements in general in the realm of
governance and empowerment. 
	Venue: Development Academy of the Philippines, Tagaytay City

	(Note:  The Cluster on Democratization and Governance was merged with the
Cluster on People's Rights)
	
2. Pre-forum Conference on Labor and Migrant Rights, to center on the
concerns of labor and migrant workers. 
Venue: Development Academy of the Philippines, Tagaytay City

3. Pre-forum Conference on Economic and Social Development, to include the
issues of food security, small and medium entrepreneurs, small farmers and
fisherfolk, fair trade, economic sovereignty, and cooperatives development. 
Venue: Davao City

4. Pre-forum Conference on Ecology and Environment, to focus on the
implications of trade and investment liberalization on the prospects for
sustainable, ecologically sound development. 
Venue: Cebu City

II. 	MANILA PEOPLE'S FORUM ON APEC 1996 (FORUM PROPER): 
"Free Trade and Sustainable Development: Agenda for Regional Cooperation" 
(22-23 November)

The Forum will serve as a venue for various organizations in the Asia
Pacific region to develop a common understanding  of the implications of
unhampered trade on genuine economic, social and sustainable development.
This common understanding will be the basis for coming up with appropriate
responses to build and integrate social concerns on economic policy in view
of APEC.  One major output of the forum will be an alternative Peoples
Agenda on APEC. 

To ensure maximum participation of international delegates, paticipating
groups are requested to undertake their own preparatory processes prior to
the November forum.  They are encouraged to form their own country
committees for the MPFA '96. These committees will coordinate in-country
preparations for the Manila forum, and are expected to develop country
critiques/papers on the implications of APEC on people's rights, labor and
migrant rights, socio-economic development, the environment and ecology, and
democratization and governance.  Country papers should aim for concrete
alternatives or define alternative policies.
	
III. PEOPLE'S CARAVAN TO SUBIC 
(24 November)
	
The People's Forum will culminate in an international People's Caravan that
will feature a march of forum delegates, people's organizations, and
representatives from the peasantry, labor, indigenous peoples, women, the
Church and other sectors in a bid to present the resolutions of the Manila
forum to the APEC Leaders' Summit in Subic. Cultural presentations,
solidarity messages and various forms of people's actions will punctuate the
caravan during its trek from Manila to Subic.

* Programmes for the pre-forum conferences and the Forum Proper are being
finalized. These will be published in subsequent issues of APEC Watch, and
will be sent to the participants together with the invitation and
registration form.



APEC Watch Editorial Team
Violeta Perez-Corral, ANGOC
Pamela Asprer-Grafilo, PHC
Jenina Joy Chavez-Malaluan, FOCUS

Lay-out:  Allen M. Mariano, PPI


BE COUNTED!
If you want to participate in the PFA '96 activities, please write and tell
us so. We will be glad to send you information, and will be more than happy
to receive inputs from you.  Please address all inquiries re: PFA '96 to:

The Secretariat
Philippine Hosting Committee 
Manila People's Forum on APEC 1996
Room 209, PSSC Building, Commonwealth Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City, PHILIPPINES
Tels.: (63-2) 929-6211/(63-2) 922-9621 loc. 315
Fax: (63-2) 924-3767
E-mail: omi.apec at gaia.psdn.iphil.net