WTO: Whose Trade Organization is it? RP Solon questions RP membership in the WTO

News Release December 6,2005
Ref: Ina Alleco Silverio (09228123634), Tonyo Cruz (09178928277) email at resist_wto@yahoo.com

Resist! Spokesperson and Bayan Muna Representative Teddy Casino today questioned in Congress the Philippines' continuing membership in the the World Trade Organization (WTO). "The W TO is not by any stretch of the imagination an estbalished or elected government; but from the way it conduct itself, it has become the most powerful pseudo-legislative and judicial body in the world," he said.

Casino said that by promoting the "free trade" agenda of multinational corporations above the interests of local communities, working families, human rights and environment concerns, the WTO has systematically violated the sovereignty, economic and political independence of countries all over the world.

"In the ten years of its existence, WTO panels composed of corporate attorneys have made rulings that patently aggravate the already immense poverty of poorer, weaker nations and their peoples. The WTO has essentially taken over the governments and unilaterally laid down disastrous amendments to internal laws and charters of supposedly sovereign states. Trade, agriculture and labor officials of governments all ove r the world, to say nothing of the top executives, are essentially takin their cues from the WTO," he said.

The activist lawmaker and Resist spokespersom said that the the WTO is even imposing global authority greater than than institutions such as the United Nations (UN) dares to impose. "Unlike UN treaties, the International Labor Organization conventions, or multilateral environmental agreements, the WTO cracks its whip and enforces its rules through sanctions. This gives the WTO more power than any other international body. The WTO's authority even eclipses national governments," he said.

Casino said that more than more than 200 activists from the Philippines will gather in Hong Kong this December to protest against the WTO's 6th Ministerial Meeting.

"When the WTO was founded in 1995, it projected its supposed mandate to promote free trade as the key to development. Now, 10 years later, even developing country governments are embittered by the WTO and denounce its policies. The welfare of millions of poor and working people have been sacrificed on the WTO's altar of free trade. The WTO and its corporate agenda have been has been fully exposed. Peoples of the world ask "WTO is the WTO?" , or "Whose trade organization is the WTO? and the answer is swift in coming: the WTO is solely run and controlled by the superpowers led by the US and it transnational and multinational corporations. It is not and has never been an institution that had the betterment of the working peoples' welfare as its agenda."

"Ten years of the WTO is way too much. Now is the time to ask: Whose trade organization is it? It does not appear to belong to or benefit the majority of the world's citizens. The WTO system favors huge multinational companies and the wealthiest few in developed and developing countries, violently attacking the welfare of the poor."
Finally, Casino said that in Hong Kong later this month, Filipino activists - farmers, workers, immigrants, and women -- will register their strong protest against the WTO, linking its policies to the suffering in the daily lives of the poor and working people of the world, not just of the Philippines.

"The WTO's policies on agriculture, labor, immigration, privatization, and trade liberalization spell doom for millions of people in the world. The Philippine government should renoucne membership to this infamous organization and assert economic independence and political indepedence," he concluded.#