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The
Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (Jpepa)
is a comprehensive economic agreement that puts the
Philippines at a serious disadvantage. It poses serious
social and environmental implications that threaten our
nation’s well-being and its future.
Threat
of overfishing and fisheries collapse
While
there is no fishery-access agreement between Japan and
the Philippines, Japanese commercial fishing may be
allowed under Jpepa terms because its definition of
“Area” (Article 2), where investments and services may
be undertaken, includes the territorial waters of the
country and its Exclusive Economic Zone.
It
should also be noted that even without Jpepa, foreign
investment is already allowed in commercial deep-sea
fishing under the Philippine Foreign Investments Act of
1991, provided that foreign participation does not
exceed 40 percent.
As in
previous years, the fisheries sector is again on the
2007 list of investment priorities of the Philippine
government. Alongside shrimp and other aquaculture
products, tuna—a product of commercial fishing—tops the
list of priority products for export.
This is
an incentive that, coupled with Jpepa, can lead to
increasing commercial-fishing activities in the coming
years. This development will have adverse impacts on the
sustainability of local marine resources that, according
to experts, have reached their maximum sustainable yield
back in the 1990s and are now increasingly overfished.
The threat of eventual collapse of local fisheries is
serious given the persistence of an open-access regime
in the country.
In
aquaculture,
Japan
has been a leading export destination of local shrimp
products since the late 1980s. But the
socio-environmental costs of intensive shrimp farming in
the country have not been properly addressed up to the
present. Jpepa says nothing about addressing such costs.
It is
interesting to see if Jpepa would spur Japanese
investments in local shrimp farming (and in other
aquaculture products), thus helping the local shrimp
industry to recover after almost 10 years now of low
productivity and diseases. But again, the downside would
be the threat that the massive socio-environmental costs
in the 1980s and 1990s would be repeated.
Unfair
Jpepa provisions: national treatment, nontransfer of
technology
Certain
Jpepa provisions are unfair. For instance, national
treatment applies to Japanese goods, investments and
services (Articles 17, 73 and 89) which means that they
should be given the same and equal treatment as that
received by their Filipino counterparts in the country.
This treatment runs counter to current restrictions on
foreign equity or ownership of enterprises under the
1987 Constitution.
Without
this limit to foreign capital, local commercial fishers
and aquaculture operators may be put at a serious
disadvantage later on, especially because they do not
have the advantage in terms of technology and neither
are they subsidized like their Japanese counterparts.
Japanese fisheries subsidies amount to more than US$ 2
billion yearly, the largest in the world.
Besides,
Japanese fisheries investors may not be required to
transfer technology to Filipinos or hire any number of
locals; and no restrictions may be imposed in the sale
of goods and services coming from their investments
(Article 93).
Philippine negotiators have argued that we do not have
any defensive interests in agriculture and fisheries.
But the above Jpepa provisions prove otherwise; they
pose a threat to both local capital and the
sustainability of resources.
Protective barriers against local fishery products
Moreover, Japan remains protective of many fishery
products that are caught by municipal fishers. Products
like sardines, mackerel, anchovies, cuttlefish and
seaweed are excluded in the Jpepa schedule of tariff
reductions for Japan.
In
excluding these products from any commitments to tariff
elimination, Japan has the option not to reduce and even
increase the tariffs on these products, depending on its
interests.
Why did
Filipino negotiators fail to have these products
included in the Japanese schedule of tariff reduction if
in fact what we have is offensive interest in fisheries
vis-à-vis Japan?
Even
before Jpepa was concluded last year, the Japanese
tariff for local yellow-fin tuna was already low at 3.5
percent; and the tariff for frozen shrimp was already
zero percent. What our negotiators should have worked on
was to get more market access for other local fishery
products in Japan; which they failed to do.
Trade in
endangered species
There is
a need to further study the implication of the inclusion
of manatee, dugong, whales and dolphins in both the
Philippine and Japanese schedules of tariff elimination
of products. In fact, the Philippines has agreed to
immediate elimination tariffs for these marine mammals
upon entry into force of the agreement.
These
species may not be traded by the Philippines and Japan,
which are both signatories to the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
Japan,
however, continues to fish commercially for certain
endangered whale species (e.g. minke and Bryde whales)
and to engage in annual hunts for dolphins and
porpoises—saying that whaling and dolphin hunts
(justified as a means to control dolphin populations)
are part of Japanese culture.
The
Philippine inclusion of these endangered species in its
tariff-elimination schedule cannot be simply dismissed
as a technical matter. It implies that the country also
regards these species as tradable, despite the
prohibition under CITES and the Wildlife Resources
Conservation and Protection Act (Republic Act 9147). |
