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QUEZON
Rep. Lorenzo Tañada III assailed the absence of Trade
Secretary Peter Favila and Agriculture Secretary Arthur
Yap from the World Trade Organization (WTO)
mini-ministerial talks that start in Geneva on Monday,
saying they should attend then use the country’s veto
power should new modalities disadvantageous to the
Philippines emerge.
Tañada, in a statement released by Fair
Trade Alliance (FTA), said he was surprised and saddened
upon hearing that Favila, who is supposed to be the
country’s chief negotiator, and Yap will not be
attending the mini-ministerial meeting that is primarily
meant to set new multilaterals in the agricultural trade
and nonagriculture market access.
“While I do not doubt the negotiating
capacities of most government bureaucrats we have sent
to the miniministerial, still, the privilege to take the
floor and make a point during the talks is given first
and foremost to ministers. Undersecretaries are second
priority there,” said Tañada, the vice chairman of
Congress’s special committee on WTO and Globalization.
He said Favila and Yap should capitalize
on the claims that the Doha Round of Talks in the WTO is
a “Development Round” and new modalities should move the
interests of developing countries more than the rich
nations.
He said while there are opportunities in
the offing at the WTO Doha Round, there are also “real
threats to our economy.”
See related story on
civil-society’s views, “Economy”
This, as the country’s chief negotiator
for agriculture gave assurances Sunday that the
Philippines will not give up on the inclusion of
safeguards for farm products.
Interviewed by phone from Geneva,
Agriculture Undersecretary Segfredo Serrano said the
Philippines has not changed its stance, especially on
the issue of safeguards. “The Philippines cannot
flip-flop on its stance [especially with regard to
safeguards].”
Agriculture Secretary Yap, for his part,
said that he has already given instructions to the
Philippine delegation; however, he refused to give
details, especially on the draft modalities on the
Agreement on
Agriculture.
Sources simply said Yap instructed
Philippine negotiators for farm trade to stand firm on
the issue of safeguards.
The Philippines is part of the so-called
Group of 33 (G-33) pushing for the inclusion of special
products (SP) and the special safeguard mechanism (SSM)
in a new global trade accord.
Earlier, the G-33 countries proposed
that the SP should comprise 20 percent of total
agricultural tariff lines, and that 50 percent of SPs
should be exempted from tariff reduction; while the
remaining 50 percent should be subjected to minimal
tariff cuts of 5 percent and 10 percent.
The group had also pushed for
self-designation on the identification of SPs.
The G-33 countries have also proposed
that the SSM be made available to all farm products and
that countries be allowed to use price or volume
trigger. The group had also proposed that countries be
allowed to use remedies that will enable countries to
apply tariffs beyond the Uruguay Round bound rate.
In lamenting the personal participation
of the Cabinet secretaries in the Geneva talks this
week, Tañada said Yap should be fighting it out with the
agriculture ministers of other countries to ensure the
outcome of the talks advances the Philippines’ food and
livelihood security, as well as rural development.
With this, he said, the tariff-cutting
schemes that will be worked out in Geneva should not
result in untrammeled trade liberalization that hurts
local industries.
The Philippine ministers, he added,
should also see to it that significant reductions are
made in the domestic agriculture subsidies given by
developed countries—the US, EU, Australia and Japan.
Tañada worries as well that the
Philippines would lose its own services sectors to
foreign firms right in the country’s own backyard if the
negotiators do not watch out for the new modalities in
the trade in services.
“As they go via ‘request-offer’ modality
where the US and EU are most aggressive, side deals can
be made to open up critical sectors in the economy like
water and energy distribution, operation of public
utilities, etc., which might go into a full-blown
negotiations if there are enough requests and offers,”
Tañada said. |
