[asia-apec 858] Do Away with APEC!

[appasec]

Pambansang Lakas ng Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya- Pilipinas) 
[National Federation of Fisherfolk Organizations of the Philippines]
18 Mabuhay St., Bgy. Central, Quezon City * Telefax: 434-38-36

Nationwide Coalition of Fisherfolk for Aquatic Reform (Nacfar)
69 Maayusin St., UP Village, Quezon City * Telefax: 920-58-24

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Press Release
November 5, 1998

DO AWAY WITH APEC 1998, 
Militant Fishers Tell Estrada !

In a scheduled press conference today, fishers belonging to Pamalakaya and Nacfar urged President Estrada TO DO AWAY WITH APEC 1998! 

Rodolfo Sambajon, Pamalakaya national chair, said that “after six summit meetings, the APEC’s twin policies of liberalization and deregulation has not solved the problems besetting Philippine fisheries. Instead, APEC-inspired opening of the fisheries economy to foreign investors and local comprador-landlords worsened the problem of overfishing, and subjected the Asian economy to the stranglehold of monopoly capital in crisis.” 

Sambajon said that “Japanese and US dominated-APEC pried open local fishing economies for systematic plunder through standardized export-orientation and calibrated import-dependence, thus resulting in the stockpiling of multimillion trade deficits temporarily cured by IMF-WB structural adjustment loans.” Pamalakaya revealed that the current financial crisis also affects and reflects the fishery crisis. 
“Due to the crisis of overfishing primarily by capitalist economies, their actual production dwindled by 10.3 million tons in just five years and had relied on imports, that they now consume 85 percent of the world imports, 30 percent of which was taken solely by Japan,” Sambajon voiced. 

Pamalakaya added that “by committing further to APEC policies, the Philippines gives away vital fishery resources to monopoly capitalists who represent only one percent or some 35,000 fishing vessels of the world’s global industrialized fleets, but greedily consumes one-half and two thirds of all marine landings” 

In effect, local fisherfolk and the Filipino people suffer from decreasing per capita consumption of fish, and their fishery resources ravaged due to indiscriminate conversions for unsustainable aquafarming practices just to meet export demands”, Pamalakaya’s chairman quipped. 

Pamalakaya and Nacfar resists imperialist-led globalization under the APEC and WTO, and shall join the upcoming anti-APEC Asia Pacific Peoples Assembly to be held in crisis-tormented Malaysia. 

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