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Japan
is offering the Philippines an economic treaty that is
too good to be true.
Nonbelievers say they smell something fishy, but
senators from the administration party insist there is
nothing fearful about it.
“Let’s
ratify the treaty first and if it indeed smells, let’s
renegotiate it later,” propose the proadministration
senators.
The
proposed treaty is called the Japan-Philippines Economic
Partnership Agreement (Jpepa), which the governments of
the two countries want to be immediately ratified by the
Senate.
This
partnership agreement is actually part of what is called
the 16-nation Pan Asian Free-Trade Area that includes
Southeast Asian nations and other countries that will
have a population of 3.1 billion people and a gross
domestic product of $10 trillion.
Needless
to say,
Japan
wants to be the leader of Pan Asia, an obsession it
failed to realize when it was defeated in World War II.
Back then,
Japan
invaded most of Asia and imposed against its neighbors
the Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Now
comes the Jpepa, and along with it the new regional
version called the Pan Asia.
All
sorts of come-ons are being offered to the Philippines,
short of promising the country a new economic miracle
that has eluded its people since time immemorial.
It was
epic poet Francisco Balagtas who warned his readers in
1835 to be wary of strangers offering gifts because
their motives may not be exactly noble.
Balagtas
must have earlier read the epic poem about the siege of
Troy, which was invaded by the Greeks who came with a
gift of a towering wooden horse that was supposed to end
their 10-year war over previously wedded Helen of Greece
who was willingly kidnapped by her lover Paris of Troy.
The
Trojans hugely celebrated the end of the siege so that
when the Greeks emerged from the horse, the city was in
a drunken stupor. The Greek warriors opened the city
gates to allow the rest of the army to enter, and the
city was pillaged ruthlessly, all the men were killed,
and all the women and children were taken into slavery,
said the encyclopaedia account.
In
modern times, the “Trojan Horse” is a computer virus or
spyware that installs malicious software while under the
guise of doing something else.
Feeling
that a Trojan Horse is being imposed on them, some
senators want to renegotiate the terms of the proposed
agreement.
They say
the agreement is disadvantageous to the Philippines,
especially with respect to the liberalized inflow of
Japanese products, and the language proficiency and test
requirements for Filipino nurses seeking employment in
Japan.
While
the debate was going on, a Japanese government trade
group announced the creation of an economic research
institute to hasten the economic growth and integration
of 16 East Asian countries with an initial endowment of
¥1 billion from the Japanese government.
“We have
to deepen our regional integration,” said Yasutomi Ota,
executive director of the Manila office of the Japan
External Trade Organization.
He made
the announcement during a press conference in unveiling
the Economic Research Institute for Asean and
East Asia, or Eria.
This is
an engine for establishing this kind of economic
integration, he explained.
Eria is
mandated to come up with relevant research and policy
recommendations to aid the 10-member Asean in realizing
an Asean Economic Community by 2015, Ota said.
He
promised that the research institute would “contribute
to narrowing of development gaps” in Southeast Asia to
achieve a European Union-like integration.”
Asean’s
gross domestic product in 2005 reached $881 billion,
while the trade blocs of the North American Free-Trade
Agreement and the European Union peaked to $13 trillion
and $27 trillion in the same year, respectively.
In the
Senate, Trade Secretary Peter Favila said lawmakers
should either ratify or reject the Jpepa, but
renegotiation is not an option right now.
In
short, take it or leave it, warned Favila, as he
emphasized that the Philippines would be placed at a
great disadvantage if the Jpepa was disapproved by the
Senate.
“It will
be deprived of the privilege to expand its agriculture
and industrial exports to Japan without tariff,” he
cautioned.
At the
same time, he said the
Philippines’
share in the Japanese market might even be diminished in
favor of other Southeast Asian countries that have
already forged their own economic agreements with Japan,
like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
Now,
that’s eerie indeed.
E-mail: raulbvalino@yahoo.com.ph. |
