[asia-apec 371] Keynote address at People's Conference Against Imperialist Globalization

[daga]

PEOPLE'S CONFERENCE AGAINST IMPERIALIST GLOBALIZATION
     
Plenary Paper:
     
     Apec  and  Globalization: 
     Prescription for  National Disaster
     
     Keynote Address by Rep. Wigberto Tanada

     
     I  would  like to say Mabuhay to the organizers  and
     participants of this international conference.  This
     is  not  an alternative conference to APEC. This  is
     the   real  conference  of  peoples  of  the   world
     struggling for a just global economic order  founded
     on  fair trading terms  and respect for the economic
     sovereignty  of  each nation and the aspirations  of
     every  developing country to catch up with the  more
     developed ones. This  is the conference that has put
     on the agenda the real problems facing our people --
     food and jobs, justice and freedom.
     
       In  contrast,  the  Summit  being  hosted  by  our
     government is fast turning into a nightmare for  the
     Ramos  administration because of its failure to  use
     it  as  a  reaffirmation  of its  supposed  economic
     successes.
     
      Billed as the "coming out party" for the Philippine
     tiger cub economy, the APEC Summit is supposed to be
     a  grand opportunity for the Ramos administration to
     showcase  its  achievements --  an  economy  on  the
     rebound,  a  thriving   democracy  and  a  contented
     populace under a hands-on can-do President. This  is
     the  image  that the government wants to project  to
     the APEC summitteers and the world mass media.
     
      But unfortunately for the Ramos administration, the
     opposite and probably, more realistic, image is  the
     one  catching global and local public attention. The
     new  hotels and infrastructures, including the giant
     white boards lining the APEC routes, cannot hide the
     stark   reality   of   growing  mass   poverty   and
     slumization, rampant lawlessness and anarchy on  the
     streets,  and  the  deepening  crisis  of  industry,
     agriculture and employment in the country.
     
       Under  the World Bank-guided structural adjustment
     program    and    the    GATT--WTO-directed    trade
     liberalization,  the  Philippine  economy  has  been
     opened  up  and  globalized. After one  and  a  half
     decades,  however, the scoreboard shows  that  there
     were  only a few winners but many losers under  this
     free  trade-globalization process. And yet, the APEC
     wants  to  further strengthen this trend, while  the
     Filipino  economic technocrats want to even   hasten
     the  liberalization program as part of the country's
     Individual Action Plan (IAP) under APEC.
     
       Thus,  among  those  in  this  gathering  are  the
     Filipino  workers who have either lost jobs  or  who
     have  been casualized  because their industries have
     collapsed  or  are losing out in this globalization-
     liberalization process. These industries include the
     garments  industry, the textile industry,  the  tire
     industry, the shoe industry, the steel industry  and
     so  on  and  so forth. Among those in this gathering
     are Filipino farmers and rural workers who have lost
     lands,  jobs, incomes because of the triple policies
     of  agricultural  deregulation (meaning  withdrawing
     government  support to rice, corn  and  other  vital
     crops)    tariffication   of   hitherto   restricted
     agricultural  imports,  and  tariff   reduction  for
     agricultural imports.
     
     These  triple policies under GATT-WTO  and  SAP  are
     aggravated  by  rampant  land conversions,  monopoly
     land  acquisition by giant realtors and  large-scale
     entry  of  developers of golf courses,  resorts  and
     retirement  villages for the elites of this  country
     and the world. Thus, our rice industry is in crisis,
     our corn industry is in crisis, our coconut industry
     is  in  crisis, our garlic and onion industry is  in
     crisis, and even our banana and pineapple industries
     are  in crisis. And all around us, there is so  much
     landlessness, joblessness and unhappiness. Just look
     at  our  rural masses and our urban slumdwellers.  I
     repeat,  just  look  at  our rural  masses  and  our
     slumdwellers and you will know the real state of the
     nation.
     
      Philippine experience and global  inequality
     
     I  am  sure this experience of the Philippines under
     this   phenomenon called transnational globalization
     is  not  unique. Earlier, we have seen the  economic
     collapse  of  Mexico after a decade of  implementing
     wholesale  an  IMF-World Bank  program  of  economic
     liberalization,  which  paved  the   way   for   the
     transnational  takeover  of  Mexican  industry   and
     agriculture. Ironically, it was in the first year of
     Mexico's membership in the North American Free Trade
     area (NAFTA) that its economy went bust.
     
       Similarly, it was in the first year of  Philippine
     membership  in  the GATT-WTO that  the  agricultural
     sector   performed  disastrously.  In  the  GATT-WTO
     debates  in 1994, our government promised an  annual
     surplus  of P3.4 billion in agricultural  trade  and
     half  a million new jobs in the countryside. But  in
     1995, our agricultural trade deficit instead rose to
     P2.21  billion and some 154,000 jobs in  agriculture
     were  lost  as a result of multi-dimensional   rice,
     corn,  sugar  and coconut crisis. For a  while,  the
     government was even in a quandary  where  to  import
     the  cereals to distribute to our people who  formed
     long  queues  and endured long hours  for  a  paltry
     share of imported cereals.
     
       The point is that under SAP, GATT-WTO and regional
     free  trade  initiatives like NAFTA  and  APEC,  the
     pattern   of  national  and  international  economic
     developments  has  become  even  more   uneven   and
     unequitable.   The  only  winners  of  globalization
     appear  to  be the transnational corporations  which
     ride  on free trade rhetorics and policies in  order
     to  conquer bigger markets, unmindful of the  impact
     of their global economic conquests on local industry
     and  agriculture and the job  and food  requirements
     of the local populace.
     
     Clearly, the challenge for all of us is not only  to
     help expose national and global realities under this
     so-called  globalization but also to put forward  an
     alternative  development paradigm  that  places  the
     interests  of   the people first before  the  market
     requirements of a few transnationals.
     
     In  this regard, we need to debate with the economic
     planners  and  the APEC  economists  on  all  issues
     taken  up  in the name of free trade. We  need  more
     conferences  of this nature.
     
      On free trade and double talk
     
       We  also  need to expose the tendency  free  trade
     politicians to say one thing and do another.
     
        In  this  regard,  I  would  like  to  take  this
     opportunity to discuss another feature of this  APEC
     exercise -- the tendency of our very own  government
     to  engage  in  double  talk  and  subvert,  in  the
     process, our very own  democratic  processes.
     
     Specifically,  let  me refer to  the  new  executive
     commitments  under the individual   action  plan  or
     IAP,  which  the  Ramos government  voluntarily  and
     unilaterally  committed to APEC without consultation
     with  local  industry and agriculture   and  without
     even informing Congress about it.
     
       This  year, our government announced a  number  of
     times  that the Philippines will not commit to  APEC
     beyond  what  is  already committed under  GATT-WTO.
     Also,  the  nature  of APEC is that  it  is  largely
     consultative  in character. It is  a  forum,  or  an
     organization  that is less formal and  binding  than
     GATT-WTO.   Moreover,  we  are  now  on   a   super-
     liberalization  program under the GATT-WTO.  By  the
     year 2000, no tariffs will exceed 10 percent, and by
     the year 2004, all imports shall have uniform tariff
     of  only  5  percent. In contrast, APEC is targeting
     the  year  2020  as  the completely free-trade  year
     among APEC members.
     
       But  to the economic planners, who naively believe
     that     growth     automatically    follows     any
     liberalization,  this  super-liberalization  program
     under the GATT-WTO is not enough. So, out of nowhere
     and  in defiance of the Constitutional mandate  that
     tariff  rates  shall  be  set  by  Congress,   these
     planners  are  committing  the  country,  under  the
     latest   Individual  Action  Plan,  to  the  further
     reduction  of  the present average  weighted  tariff
     rate  of  10.4 percent to 6.69 percent by  the  year
     2000.  Included  in  this super-super-liberalization
     program are agricultural products.
     
      And this is not all.
     
       Under the TRIPS provision of the GATT-WTO, we have
     four  years  and two months to align  our  laws   on
     intellectual  property rights (IPRs) with  those  of
     the  world  trading body. And then all of a  sudden,
     this is now being discussed in Congress.
     
       As  you  are  all probably aware of, the  greatest
     form of protectionism these days is not in tariff or
     non-tariff trade barriers. It is in control
     of  technology which is a major driving force in the
     globalization  drive of transnational  corporations.
     This  is the reason why the United States and  other
     developed  countries  fought  hard  for  the   TRIPS
     agreement  in the GATT-WTO. They want to  monopolize
     technology and new technical processes. They do  not
     want  developing countries like the  Philippines  to
     catch-up in the development game through the  faster
     acquisition of technology. They want the division of
     labor between developed and developing countries  to
     remain  through  a  technology gap.  They  want  the
     developing  countries  to  pay  a  high  price   for
     technology.
     
       In  this light, one can see that the American game
     plan  in  joining, and now dominating,  APEC  is  to
     transform  this body into an additional   instrument
     by which it can preach to Asia Pacific countries the
     so-called virtues of trade liberalization, while  it
     threatens   these  same  countries  with  sanctions,
     including  the Super 301 provision of  the  American
     tariff  and  customs law, if they  violate  the  so-
     called  IPRs  and liberalization formula  under  the
     GATT-WTO.
     
        In  the  meantime,  these  countries  refuse   to
     recognize    problems   in   the    regional     and
     international  playing fields for business  such  as
     dumping  of excess goods in our domestic market  and
     failure to give equal treatment to Filipino overseas
     workers.
     
       It  is  all  part of the doubletalk of the  United
     States and other developed countries.
     
       On the other hand, we also have our own government
     engaged in double talk. It says that the Philippines
     is  not making  any new commitments to APEC  and yet
     at  the  same time, it is rushing a new super-super-
     liberalization program. Aside from the  acceleration
     of  the tariff reduction program  and the passage of
     laws  aligning  our rules on patents and  trademarks
     with those of GATT-WTO, the government is committing
     the  opening  up  of  our retail trade  sector,  our
     tourism  industry  and our landholdings  to  foreign
     investors.
     
       It  seems that they have decided that this  super-
     super-liberalization  program  is  the  solution  to
     mass  poverty  and  unemployment  in  this  country.
     Unfortunately,  this  is  not  the   solution.   Our
     experience  shows that without a clear-cut  plan  of
     capability-building   and   protecting    our    own
     industrial   and   agricultural   interests,    this
     globalization-liberalization  recipe is  a  surefire
     formula for economic and social disaster.
     
     Renewed call for nationalism
     
     Hence,  I  would  like to look at  the  coming  APEC
     summit  as  a challenge for all of us to  raise  the
     issue  of  the  lack  of  the   nationalism  in  our
     economic planning.
     
     Our  task in the progressive movement is to continue
     pushing for an alternative development program based
     on  the ideology of economic nationalism which  will
     provide   a  clear-cut  policy  of  industrial   and
     agricultural   development  beneficial  to  Filipino
     producers, workers and farmers where some  areas  of
     the  economy should  be protected and others  opened
     up   depending  on  the  level  of  development  and
     available  investments.  But  more  importantly,  we
     should  have  a clear program of capability-building
     --    industry    targeting,    local    investments
     mobilization,   education  and  skills   development
     reforms, R & D for targeted Filipino industries, and
     support  systems and institutions for small Filipino
     producers, businessmen, workers and farmers.
     
      These are some of the major issues that cry out for
     attention  and yet have fallen on the deaf  ears  of
     this government. I thus appeal to all of you --  let
     us  strengthen our solidarity on the basis of  these
     issues. If our politicians refuse to listen  to  us,
     then  let  us  bring the discussion to  our  people.
     Instead of a transnational economic agenda,  let  us
     advance  our  own  pro-people, pro-worker  and  pro-
     farmer nationalist agenda.
     
       No  my  friends,  nationalism,  as  the  gurus  of
     globalization  would  like us  to  believe,  is  not
     irrelevant or obsolete in this day and age.  Nor  is
     it  the barrier to economic development. It is still
     practiced everywhere in the globe by nations,  large
     and  small, who demand a fair measure of dignity and
     protection for their own people. The problem is that
     it  has never been given a chance to succeed in  the
     Philippines.
     
       On  this note, I wish one and all a good  day.  My
     warmest  solidarity greetings to  you  all.  Mabuhay
     tayong lahat!
     
                                ###

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