Senators slam ‘fuzzy’ gov’t presentation of JPEPA

"Gordon argued that based on his experience at the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority and the Department of Tourism, memoranda of agreements rarely resulted in actual investments"

Agreement to be rejected if voting held, they say

By Veronica Uy - INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines -- The Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) will be rejected if voting were held this Friday, according to the senators who were at the first public hearing on the treaty by the legislative body.

“I am under-whelmed by the presentation of the government which in my estimate alone, based on their presentation, if the voting were held today, JPEPA will lose,” said Senator Manuel Roxas II, who heads the committee on trade and commerce, the secondary committee in the JPEPA hearings.

“They may simply not know how to present. Anyway, this is not the last hearing, but based on the hearing today, the benefits to us are not clear,” he said in Filipino.

Roxas said the trade negotiators were “overselling” JPEPA’s impact on foreign investments. He pointed out that investors considered other factors -- costs of power, labor, and other production costs -- before putting in money. “What will the treaty do that would change the investment environment?” he asked.

Even Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, head of the committee on foreign relations overseeing the hearings, was more impressed by the presentation of anti-JPEPA groups.

She said that in contrast to the “fuzzy” government presentation, those who were against, “particularly the representative of the Junk JPEPA Coalition, were much better prepared than the government officials.”

“It appears from our first hearing that the government officials concerned are having a hard time justifying concurrence with JPEPA,” she said.

“We are debating this in the national forum of the Philippines, and we have to make our people understand and accept the arguments that are being raised by government, but so far they have been fuzzy,” Santiago added.

Lawyer Golda Benjamin of the Junk JPEPA Coalition scored points against the items that the Philippine negotiators gave away in this treaty which other countries like Singapore and Mexico did not have in their own economic agreements with Japan.

Benjamin said the Philippines gave "limited reservations" on provisions on national treatment (the hiring of Japanese nationals in investments in the Philippines). She pointed out the constitutional violations in the provisions on land ownership and deep-sea fishing, relaxing limitations of foreign ownership to these initiatives to 40 percent.

The non-government lawyer also stressed the lack of safety nets in sectors to be affected by the tariff reductions specified in the treaty. For instance, she said, in the automotive industry, some 77,000 workers involved in the completely built-up cars sector would lose their jobs when cars imported from Japan would suddenly become tariff-free.

Senator Juan Ponce-Enrile was miffed by the stance taken by Donald Dee, head of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Toshifumi Inami, president of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the Philippines.

Dee was very adamant about having the treaty ratified because “we will lose if there is no JPEPA.” Inami pointed out that it would be “difficult for the Philippines to enter the market without the JPEPA, especially as the image of the Philippines was not good.” When asked to explain this negative image, the Japanese businessman said typhoons and earthquakes made it so.

“It’s as if you are saying, ‘You sign up or else.’ The way you’re putting it to us, ‘God’s sake, shape up or else,’” Enrile told Dee. “We want to understand the merits of this treaty. Don’t threaten us or else get the hell out of here. The way you are speaking seems you are alienating us from this treaty. You have said enough.”

Senator Pia Cayetano, who has expressed her opposition to the treaty because of its anti-environmental provisions, said she was “not convinced that people are better off with JPEPA.”

Trade Undersecretary Elmer Hernandez testified that if ratified, the JPEPA would result in an estimated P222 billion foreign direct investment (FDI); 329,739 jobs; and P32.17 billion in taxes from 2007 to 2010. These results are an increase to the P135 billion in FDI.

When Senator Richard Gordon questioned the basis for this forecast, Hernandez said it was “investment needs” from “missions.”

But Gordon argued that based on his experience at the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority and the Department of Tourism, memoranda of agreements rarely resulted in actual investments.

Senator Loren Legarda questioned the different figures presented by the Department of Trade and Industry and the National Economic and Development Authority on the projected increase in the gross domestic product attributable to the JPEPA ratification.

Citing figures from the DTI, Legarda said the DTI projected a GDP increase of 1.75 percent to 3.03 percent (or equivalent to P116 billion to P221 billion), while the NEDA projected GDP growth of 2 percent to 2.5 percent (or between P134 billion and P168 billion).

Outside the hearing, Santiago suggested that government officials “be less technocratic about their vocabulary which is not understandable to the lay audience this morning, and even to the senators themselves. They should make arguments and justifications for the treaty more immediate and more easily grasped by the ordinary people.”