Life in PNoy’s Enchanted Kingdom

The Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement is hazardous to the nation’s health. In exchange for OFW dollars, i.e. caregivers and nurses to Japan, the Arroyo regime will accept toxic and hazardous trash from Japan.

A good analysis of the double talk by defenders of JPEPA can be found Here

Below is an excerpt of their analysis. (A slight edit was done in the links)

“The Inquirer banner news today is on the JPEPA A government official (Environment Usec. Ignacio) defends JPEPA’s inclusion of toxic waste by saying that “It (JPEPA) will not violate our laws in the sense that they (toxic and hazardous waste) will not be coming in because they are banned in the first place,” and “The objective of the Philippines was to get the JPEPA approved, and the environment is not a concession actually because it has no effect on our laws, that’s why there is no harm, in other words”. Another (DTI Usec Aquino) defends JPEPA by saying that the “(JPEPA) was an ‘all-trade’ pact, which means that all products produced in both countries are covered” and “in essence, the tariffs for these products have no real use because the products are banned. That is why during negotiations (like what we had for the JPEPA), this is one of the easiest and first things to be done — eliminating useless tariffs” and, thus, “following Philippine laws, prohibited products cannot enter the country”.

With all due respect, however, the logic they employed is simply wrong. And beside the point. As we have long pointed out, treaties under our jurisdiction are treated as part of Philippine law and are treated as the equal of legislative enactments. If this treaty becomes effective (and JPEPA, make no mistake, is a treaty), this will have the effect - by simple resort to statutory construction - of overriding previous legislation in conflict with it. To say that toxic wastes will not be allowed in because it’s banned is therefore simply not conclusively true because the JPEPA can be said to have overridden the ban. To say, furthermore, that in an FTA all tariffs for products need to be covered and lowered is also not correct. What the WTO rules actually say is that you have to include “substantially all trade” in an FTA and not all trade and what “substantially all trade” means is still subject to discussion even in the WTO (some countries even interpret it to mean 60%, 70%, 80% of trade, which shows you that “substantially all trade” is far from meaning “all trade”; note that our government is actually resorting to the foregoing interpretations as well, focusing as it does on garments for the proposed RP-US FTA, so the consistency - or lack thereof - in the reasoning here is interesting). Even for “technicality” reasons, therefore, it still is hard to understand why toxic wastes were included in JPEPA and at 0% tariffs at that. [That the issue of wastes is indeed an area of real concern was illustrated HERE and HERE.

Environmental and other civil society groups fear a possible repeat of the Japanese waste scandal in July 1999, where approximately 2,700 tons of infectious and toxic waste labeled as 'waste paper for recycling' arrived in Manila.

Custom inspectors were shocked to find in 122 containers tons of used adult and baby diapers, used sanitary napkins, discarded intravenous syringes used in blood letting and dextrose, medical rubber hose and tubes, garments and bandages.

Aside from contaminated hospital wastes, they also found plastic sheets, polystyrene packaging materials, PVC pipes and PVC plastic materials mixed with household and industrial wastes."

It's not enough to wipe and wash the butts of Japan's sick and elderly, we must also store their shit.

But wait. There's more.

"It must be remembered, however, that aside from waste products, there are other issues that should be pointed out regarding JPEPA:

> the emergency action provisions (safeguard measures) in JPEPA provide less protection than that provided for by Philippine laws and the WTO (and note that the domestic cement, steel, and ceramic industries have sought or been seeking safeguard measures from imports),

> the Rule of Origin provisions allow the use of three methodologies that could create a bureaucratic quandary resulting in more transhipment and technical smuggling concerns,

> the inclusion of the 'Singapore issues' in JPEPA, which we rejected in the WTO, thus putting in question the consistency of our trade policy.

Finally, all these discussions is detracting from the point that they should have all taken place before the JPEPA was signed. Incredibly, Mike Defensor even points out that “I'm sure Prez [President] wasnt able to read the details of that.” That explains it, so it’s all right then.”

One local radio announcer said, “we will accept Japan’s toxic waste if they will accept the Arroyo’s and the Batasan in exchange.”

Enough said.