More Filipinos to lose jobs under WTO agreement
MEDIA RELEASE
IBON Foundation, Inc., 3/F SCC Bldg 4427 Interior Old Sta Mesa, Manila
Tel. 713-2729, 713-2737
E-mail: media@ibon.org
References: Rosario Bella Guzman (Executive Director)
Antonio Tujan (Research Director)
April 29, 2005
As workers around the world mark Labor Day, Filipino workers should not only intensify their call for a wage hike but also pressure the Arroyo government to advance the interests of local industries amid ongoing negotiations for the non-agricultural market access (NAMA) at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The NAMA negotiations are seen as crucial for many Third World countries like the Philippines whose generally weak and underdeveloped industries have been battered by years of liberalization.
The NAMA seeks to reduce and eliminate import tariffs on industrial products. Once approved by WTO member-countries, it would hasten the entry of cheaper industrial imports and provide undue foreign competition to small, struggling industries in the Third World.
In the past years, the deluge of cheap imports and foreign competition forced many Filipino companies to close shop or retrench workers. Everyday from 2000 to 2003, eight establishments either close down or retrench workers, translating to 196 workers displaced daily. Unemployment, pegged at 10.9% as of October 2004, is already the highest in Asia.
Thus, a fully enforced NAMA would mean darker days ahead for workers and small entrepreneurs. Such a scenario would not help government in achieving peoples demands of genuine employment.
Trade officials, however, have been mum on NAMA negotiations. Government has severely lowered tariffs before, but its unclear position on the NAMA issue, coupled with its refusal to raise wages, only highlights its anti-worker stance.
It would be urgent therefore for the Arroyo administration to prove its sincerity towards the labor sector by prioritizing the workers welfare by opposing NAMA, and by creating genuine employment for Filipinos.