Philippines
A summary of the current debate over the Philippine-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement by the Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism.
The Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) tried but failed to stop the government from including toxic and hazardous wastes from the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), yielding to pressure.
Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, yesterday said he was saddened by the agreement that environmentalists fear would turn the Philippines into Japan’s dump for toxic wastes. Indignation was also voiced in the Senate and calls were made for an investigation of the Japan-Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).
A new dump for toxic waste may soon open for Japan — and it has 7,100 islands. This is how concerned environmentalists see the likely effect of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) which President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi signed on Sept. 9 in Helsinki on the side of the Asia-Europe Meeting.
The right of the people to information on matters of public concern is a fundamental right that has been enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the Philippine Constitution,and which has been held to be self-executory (i.e., not requiring enabling legislation) by the Supreme Court in a long line of cases.
After negotiating away from public scrutiny for four years, the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) was signed at the Asia-Europe Meeting in Helsinki, Finland on Sept. 10, 2006.
Last September 9, 2006 in Finland, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Japanese Prime Minister Junihiro Koizumi signed the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), a bilateral preferential trade treaty between Japan and the Philippines that seeks to remove barriers to investments and the trade of goods and services between the two countries.
The recently signed free trade agreement between
the Philippines and Japan may have given economic
concessions to Japan that go beyond Philippine
commitments to the World Trade Organization
(WTO), a Filipino opposition legislator today warned.
A PowerPoint file presented at the FTA Workshop in Bangkok on July 28, 2006.
The militant Filipino labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) said it fears more retrenchments and lower wages with the impending liberalization of the country’s automotive and steel sectors under the recently signed Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).
The free-trade agreement clinched with the Philippines on Saturday will test whether Japan is serious about opening its labor market, a change that would trade homogeneity for a more youthful workforce.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European trade chief Peter Mandelson will discuss plans Tuesday with Philippine officials for an ambitious trade agreement between the European Union and a group of Southeast Asian countries, EU officials said.
A free trade pact with Japan has given Philippine agricultural products like sugar wider access to the world’s second-largest economy, an agriculture official said yesterday.
Japan will accept 400 nurses and 600 caregivers from the Philippines under the bilateral free-trade agreement signed over the weekend, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said Monday.
The newly signed Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement must be scrutinized by the Philippine Senate because of apprehensions over its alleged disadvantages to the country, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said on Monday. Workers’ and other groups also slammed the signing of the agreement, while a Department of Labor and Employment official said he doubted many Filipino health care workers would want to go to Japan.
Japan and the Philippines signed a free-trade pact after overcoming the thorny issue of Filipina nurses seeking work in the world’s second-biggest economy.
The upcoming Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) will bring dubious gain to the local economy while severely limiting government’s policy options to develop domestic industries.
It is contemptible how the Philippine government trades its citizens for export goods that will only push the country to even greater disaster. This is the aim of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is set to sign with Japan Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi today during the Asia Europe Meeting in Helsinki, Finland.
For Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the future of the Filipino people has a very cheap price. So cheap that she has opted to sell it to Japan by further opening up the local economy in exchange for the annual deployment of 400-500 caregivers and nurses to Japan.
