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MANY of
the country’s problems in trade and the economy in
general are rooted on the flawed economic policies and
political unrest during the post-World War II period,
according to a former agriculture official.
In his
presentation titled “The Philippine Political Economy:
1946 to 1965,” former Philippine Coconut Authority
administrator Ambassador Jose Romero Jr. said the
control of the United States on local economic affairs
and the political bickering between politicians
resulted in flawed economic policies that did not help
common Filipinos to improve their way of life.
“The
seeds of our problems today were planted at this time,
or even earlier,” Romero said during his presentation of
the first installment of symposia on the Philippine
Political Economy at the University of Asia and the
Pacific in Pasig City.
Romero
criticized the Philippine Trade Agreement signed under
the Roxas administration as one of the major causes of
inequality in trade between the US and the Philippines.
He said
that the trade agreement was theoretically a free-trade
agreement with the US, but was biased in favor of the US
and was greatly disadvantageous to the
Philippines.
Romero
pointed out that among the provisions that proved this
was the fact that under the agreement, the US imposed
100-percent excise taxes on coconut oil and imposed
quotas and quota-allocation limits on all major
Philippine products like abaca, tobacco and sugar.
He said
that during this time, the American Chamber of Commerce
was trying to stop the Philippines from being able to
compete with US products.
Romero
said the
US
did not want to threaten the Virginia tobacco industry
by allowing Philippine tobacco to enter the US market as
freely as Virginia tobacco can enter the Philippine
market.
As a
result, Romero said that Escolta and Avenida Rizal, the
shopping hot spots in Manila during that time, were
“bursting at the seams” with imported American brands,
leaving no room for local products.
Romero
also considered the overvaluation of the peso at the
time as a major factor for the country’s flawed trade
and industrial policies. At that time, Romero said the
US pegged the peso to the dollar at P2 to $1.
The
former agriculture official also said that unfair trade
caused the government to pass Republic Act 1000, which
authorized the government to borrow funds from the
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to implement infrastructure
projects.
“RA 1000
opened the floodgates to deficit financing. This planted
the seeds of inflation, among others,” Romero said.
Apart
from the Philippine Trade Agreement, another problem
that caused significant setbacks in the economy,
particularly in the agriculture sector, was the
guerrilla movement or the Hukbalahap.
Romero
said that though President Ramon Magsaysay was able to
resolve the problem during his term with the help of the
US Central Intelligence Agency, his solution came so
much later when damage had already been done.
He said
that after World War II, hacienderos were eager
to return to their land in the countryside, but the
still-active guerrilla movement, which was composed of
farm tenants, stopped them from reclaiming their land.
While
the government was ready to implement land reform,
Romero said this only angered hacienderos so much that
when they were elected into public office, many of them
blocked bills that funded land reform.
This, in
the long run, prevented the country from developing the
agriculture sector. “We were limping on one leg when all
other countries in Asia were jumping on two—agriculture
and industry,” Romero said. |
