WTO's prescription for 100% liberalization in agriculture to devastate millions ofFilipino farmers; increase worker lay-offs, closures of small businesses

News Release December 4,2005
Ref: Ina Alleco Silverio (09228123634), Tonyo Cruz (09178928277) email at resist_wto@yahoo.com

Resist WTO and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan chairperson Dr. Carol Pagaduan-Araullo today said that in the upcoming 6th Misterial meeting of the World Trade Organization in Hong Kong, the superpo wer governments led by the US will be pushing for complete 100% liberalization in agricuture and other areas of the economy.

"It is with great trepidation that we await the Philippine government's position on the issues and negotiations that will take place in the upcoming 6th Ministerial Meeting of the WTO in Hong Kong. We demand that the RP government's representatives from the Departments of Trade and Industry and Agriculture immdiately divulge the agenda Malacanang wants them to peddle in Hong Kong. We stand firmly against opening the country's agriculture to the foreign competition. This means nothing but the death of millions of farmers' livelihoods."

The WTO is pushing the NAMA or the Non-Agricultural Market Access program and the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) which are are essentially prescriptions for 100% liberalization in agricuture, trade, finance and even non trade industries. The WTO leadership will be submitting to the body a new proposal on the NAMA and the AoA during the 6th Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong later this month. Called The Derbez Text, it calls for higher tariff cuts on the part of poor countries and lower tariff cuts for the richer countries.

"If the WTO succeeds in pushing and implementing its proposed framework , the inevitable result will be destruction of the majority of the smaller, weaker economies," said Araullo. "Millions of workers will lose their jobs and millions of farmers will lose their livelihood.More domestic industries will close shop."

Agriculture is the key to sustainable development for countries such as the Philippines, yet this is what the WTOis determined to rip open and lay bear to foreign competion. The proposed framework includes an infamous mechanism to accommodate the US' and the EU's very high levels of agricultural subsidies while putting in place a new tari ff formula to open poorer countries' agricultural markets. Under these new rules on agriculture, pruduct dumping will increase," she said.

Dr. Araullo said that the the WTO is like a boxing arena where stronger players regularly beat up their smaller rivals. "The demands and concerns of the developing countries are worthless to the WTO. The new proposal is viciously biased in favor of the richer nations and patently anti-development. It is an out and out betrayal aginst the world's poor. Under the guise of fair rules, the WTO – yet again – is putting in place rules protecting the interests of the strong. The representatives of the Macapagal-Arroyo government should under no circumstances approve this proposal. The consequences of this new proposal being implemented in the Philippines will be most catastrophic for Filipino farmers and the rest of the people, "she asserted.

She said that poor countries such as the Phi lippines have witnessed the increasing deterioration of their economies and the quality of live of their respective peoples in the last 10 years under the domination and control of the WTO. She said that rich nations led by the US dominate the WTO and use it to advance their economic development at the expense of billions of people all over the world.

Finally, The Resist WTO spokesperson said that the pro-corporate, anti-poor agenda of the WTO has provoked massive resistance over the last 10 years. She said that in Seattle in December 1999, the combined refusal of the developing and least developed countries to approve a new round of liberalization and the militant anti-WTO protests mounted by progressive labor, peasant and other people's organizations caused the collapse of the third ministerial meeting.

In Cancun in September 2003, developing and least developed countries clustered into alliances named G-20 (Group of 2 0), G-33 (Group of 33), and G-90 (Group of 90), where the poorer countries took a critical leadership role, along with mass protests and demonstrations led to the collapse of the fifth ministerial.

"All efforts must be made to make sure that the Hong Kong ministerial fails. The working people of the world must unite against the WTO and push their respective governments to renounce membership to the WTO and rescind all agreements with it," she said.

"We have nothing to gain and everything to lose from being a member of the WTO," she said. "The Macapagal-Arroyo government all the more affirms its illegitimacy and anti-people character by continuing to subject the Filipino people to the trade policies of the WTO. Instead of protecting the country's people and natural resources, this government is allowing the global monster which is the WTO to suck the country dry and reduce the population to penury."#