ISDS Case Map
Philippines
The Philippine Senate isn't keen on convening the committee of the whole to tackle the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) this month, further setting back the ratification of the economic deal.
The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas and the Asian Peasant Coalition lambasted the Tagum Agricultural Development Company, Inc. for causing the pesticide poisoning of at least 79 people in Davao del Norte, Philippines, stressing that "such poisonings would increase and expand when the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) is ratified.”
Filipinos will just be getting crumbs for all the trouble and hardship that this agreement would entail. We urge the rural people to oppose JPEPA, launch campaign, education and action against the one-sided agreement. We call on our fellow farmers in Asia, especially in Japan, to help us campaign against this pact.
A resolution has been filed by the progressive party-list block in Congress
urging the Senate to junk the controversial Japan-Philippine Economic
Partnership Agreement for being 'one-sided, onerous and inimical to national
interest.'
Most of the bananas from Davao are exported to Japan by Japanese companies such as Sumitomo. These companies and their contract growers or affiliates in Mindanao will benefit from any lowered tariff under JPEPA, not the farmers and plantation workers.
On December 11, 2003, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Japan
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi agreed to formally start negotiations for a comprehensive bilateral agreement called the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said she wanted the Philippines to forge a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States by July next year. "I told [business leader] Doris Ho... ‘I got President Bush to say yes to the FTA so you write the draft so that we don't have to go through the years and years of negotiations,'" she said.
United States President George W. Bush is in favor of continuing the discussions on a possible US-Philippines Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to further enhance trade relations between the two countries, Philippine Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila said today.
While the result of the recent US elections has put on hold the proposed bilateral Philippine-US free trade negotiations, the Philippines should pursue competitiveness efforts in areas that can not benefit from FTA deals like mining, IT, intellectual property rights, call center and business processing outsourcing, according to Matthew Daley, president of the US-ASEAN Business Council.
A senior Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) official yesterday admitted that the Philippines may not have considered its national interest during the negotiations of the controversial free trade agreement with Japan signed last September.
