Throwing a monkey wrench in the WTO’s 6th
Here’s one great reason to go to Hong Kong this December, and it’s not to go to Disneyland (I never liked Mickey Mouse; am more partial to Donald Duck; whirly-twirly rides make me upchuck. Think partially digested blackraspberry doughnut and Sola lemon iced tea).
Militant people’s organizations and progressive partylists allied with the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) the International League of Peoples’ Struggles (ILPS) have formed Resist WTO, a broad alliance of groups opposed to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Resist WTO is spearheading a series of activities against the upcoming WTO 6th Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong from December 11-15, 2005; but there will also be activities in Manila to coincide with the People’s Action Week (PAW) in Hong Kong. Among Resist WTO’s core organizations are Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), Kilusang Magbubukid (KMP), Gabriela, Migrante International and Anakbayan.
Without doubt, the WTO trade talks will be a venue for poor countries’ protests against the WTO and globalization. After all, the general consensus among the poor and developing countries in the world is that the WTO should be immediately dissolved, and millions have taken to denouncing it and their respective governments’ membership to it. What good has the Philippines gotten from being a member of the WTO? Ten years after the country joined it, the economy remains in tatters and Filipinos are poorer than ever. The Philippines should get out of the WTO lickety-split. We’re aiding in our own destruction by continuing to obey its policies and economic dictates.
Correction: this government is destroying the country by obeying the WTO’s prescriptions. Along with those of the WTO and the IMF.
I always try to simplify things: the WTO is not a government. It does not carry any political authority, yet it has appropriated the power to impose punishments against nations who dare to go against its trade impositions. It’s very existence is treason against the sovereign rights and political independence of nations, especially those whose people are already sunk deep in poverty.
Peoples of the world did not elect the WTO into being. There was never a consensus among the toiling masses about the Philippines joining the WTO.
So why the hell are we obeying the WTO and why the hell is the Department of Trade and Industry and other adjunct agencies of government getting their knickers in a knot at the thought of the country being ‘punished’ by the WTO if we don’t follow its programs and prescriptions to the letter?!
For backward countries such as the Philippines,the supposed negotiations that take place during the WTO’s ministerial conferences are nothing but sham talks. Saliva festivals participated in by men and women in suits representing business interests. Who calls the shots during these ministerial conferences and meetings but the superpower governments? The policies they concoct are structured and formulated in such a way to ensure these continuing monopoly over the global economy, and to make sure that other poorer, weaker nations are nothing but sources of raw materials on the one hand, and open markets for finished goods on the other.
The WTO supposedly operates on a consensus basis, with equal decision-making power for all. Yeah, right. In reality, many important decisions get made in a process where poor countries’ negotiators are not even invited to closed door meetings — and then ‘agreements’ are announced that poor countries didn’t even know were being discussed!
Many countries do not even have enough trade personnel to participate in all the negotiations or to even have a permanent representative at the WTO. This severely disadvantages poor countries from representing their interests. Likewise, many countries are too poor to defend themselves from WTO challenges from the rich countries, and change their laws rather than pay for their own defense
It’s like ants trying to negotiate form crumbs and scraps from the tables of giants.
And having the giants taking an interest in the scraps AND THE ANTHILL.
Are farmers and workers ever consulted? Do they ever attend the deliberations?
Of course not. They’re the ones busy fighting against liberalization policies in their home countries — fighting off land developers, mining corporations, exposing the unfair labor practices and abuses of TNCs in the export processing zones.
Proof of the destructive impact of the WTO’s policies as adopted and implemented by the Philippine government can be seen in local economic indicators. For instance, because of massive importation of cheap vegetables such as onions and garlic, local farmers are being driven to their knees by crashing market prices down. The country’s agricultural trade deficits have also ballooned: the deficit grew from $42 million in 1994 to $933 in 2004. As of 2003, more than 40% of the rural population is considered poor and conditions continue to worsen because of government’s neglect for agriculture and refusal to establish support infrastructure for farmers.
Down in Nueva Ecija, farmers are letting their sibuyas crops rot in the fields because they stand to lose more transporting the bulbs to the marketplace than actually selling them, seeing that the buyers are willing to pay for the bulbs at the most barat of prices.
Last time I checked, sibuyas farmers don’t subsist on sibuyas.
In the meantime, the flood of cheap imports such as the footwear, textiles and cement products is also drowning local industries and causing unemployment rates to spike. A survey conducted by the Federation of Philippine Industries from 1995 to 2002 showed that 56 of its member-firms closed down because of liberalization, rendering some 80,319 workers jobless. Employment in agriculture , in the meantime, fell from 11.4 million in 1995 to 11 million in 2005. Job creation in manufacturing has remained basically flat over the last decade. As of April 2005, there were 4.8 million unemployed and 8.4 million underemployed Filipinos, the most the country has ever seen.
So where the heck did all those promises of the WTO go? (lower prices, higher quality products, improved employement, development for local industries?) They went the way of Virgilio Garcilliano in the previous six months, and now they resemble Garci’s statements: all lies.
This is something to count on- the upcoming Ministerial will be an important venue for exploited countries of the world to stand up against their rich counterparts’ corporate-led globalization agenda. To expose the destructive impact of deregulation, liberalization and privatization on the day-to-day survival of the working people and the poor. Countries such as the Philippines should reject the WTO and uphold their right to economic sovereignty and genuine development — we’re demanding the immediate ouster of the incumbent president of dubious legitimacy, so why on earth should we obey the dictates of a foreign international body?
There can never be genuine development under the WTO, and those who say otherwise are either dimwits or they’re from the WTO itself.
But enough complaining. Now’s the time for action! For the last two months, Filipino migrant organizations led by the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body and Resist WTO have been at the forefront of a mass education and information campaign paving the way for big rallies and leading to the People’s Action Week.
The 10-Week Countdown is the campaign launched by United Filipinos in Hong Kong (UNIFIL) and the AMCB in order to ensure the biggest and widest participation of the migrant workers in the People’s Action Week. As an active member of the Hong Kong People’s Alliance on the WTO (HKPA), Unifil, the AMCB along with Resist WTO are setting the tone for the bigger activities aimed at exposing the and defeating the WTO MC6.
For the last 10 Sundays, the groups have been holding centralized and decentralized activities exposing the impact of globalization and the WTO on the working people of the world. As the pipol over in Hongkong justifiably report with pride, the anti-WTO groups education drive have been met with success, as thousands of migrants and local Hong Kong residents have participated in the widespread public teach-ins, seminars, mobile cultural presentations, seminars, fora and film showings. Only last November 26, the colorful and creative "Hong Kong People’s Mardi Gras Against the WTO" was held. It was participated in by no less than 3,000 migrant workers!
Besides the Bayan-led contingent of members of peoples organizations, to attend the anti-WTO People’s Action Week in Hong Kong are the International League of People’s Struggle - the biggest and most militant formation of grassroots and grassroot-based anti-imperialist organization; the Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN), a network of leading research groups and institutions; and the Pesticide Action Network - Asia Pacific (PANAP), the Asian Peasants Coalition and their networks of peasant groups.
The ILPS will hold an International Conference on Trade and War in December 14 to discuss the current moves of imperialists led by the United States to intensify war and aggression in the world and its relations to the trade and economic policies of the WTO.
The Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN),will hold a People’s Speak Out on December 10, International Human Rights Day where participants will be able to share their stories on how the WTO and globalization affected their lives and their countries.
Peasant groups will hold a People’s Camp on December 15 – 17 and explain the impact of trade liberalization of agriculture.
In the meantime, the Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA), indigenous groups and other affected sectors shall hold a Mining Conference on December 10 that will focus on WTO policies that liberalize the mining industry and open up the world’s resources to plunder of mining MNCs and TNCs.
Women’s groups will put the WTO on trial for its crimes against women of world on December 16 and hold a Women’s march on the 17th.
In the end, WTO is about speeding up the race to destroy the environment, dismantle health and safety laws for workers and pry open new markets for the exploitation of big foreign corporations. Today, more than 1.3 billion people live on incomes of less than $1 a day. The gap between rich and poor has reached monstrous proportions, and every day millions of people die from starvation, simple diseases, or extreme poverty brought about by the imhumane and immoral trade and economic practices of MNCs and TNCs bolstered and supported by the WTO.
The past ten years has witnessed the WTO ensuring concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich few; increasing poverty for the majority of the world’s population; and unsustainable, highly chaotic patterns of production and consumption.
(Who needs 200 brands of shampoo?! Do we really need to import artichokes?!Why do commuters such as myself have to pay higher taxes while the likes of some congressman or governor’s son can import a Volvo or a BMW and NOT PAY IMPORT TAXES?!! Why are we importing tons of rice and corn when WE PLANT RICE AND CORN?!!!)
The effing WTO has functioned principally to prise open markets for the benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of national economies; workers, farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous people, and the environment. The WTO system’s (governed by Sith Lords and lower demons from Dante’s stinkier bolgas), rules and procedures are undemocratic, untransparent and non-accountable and have operated to marginalize the majority of the world’s people.
All this supposed economic restructuring has taken place in the context and with the effect of increasing global economic instability, the collapse of national economies, increasing inequity both between and within nations and increasing environmental and social degradation, as a result of the acceleration of the process of globalization.
Because of all this and other reasons, the people in exploited countries have to forge the strongest unity to oppose the WTO, globalization, and anti-people governments’ prioritization of corporate over human interests. Institutions like the WTO go against all principles of genuine democracy, respect for economic independence and patrimony. To fight against institutions like the WTO is to fight in defense of life.
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@Kaarawan ngayon ni Gat Andres Bonifacio - dakilang Ama ng Rebolusyong 1896 at lider proletaryado! Sya at ang kanyang buhay ay patuloy na nagsisilbing inspirasyon sa daan-daang libong aktibistang Pilipino.
Bakit hanggang ngayon hindi tinataguriang traydor sa bayan at kriminal si Emilio Aguinaldo? Pinapatay nya si Gat Andres at ipinagkanulo niya ang patrimonya ng bansa sa mga Amerikano (ang kapal ng mukha — pinasakamay ang Pilipinas sa mga Amerikano. Hindi ba’t ang panawagan nina Gat Andres ay kamatayan muna bago pagsuko?).
@Anibersaryo ngayon ng Kabataang Makabayan (KM). Mabuhay ang mga kabataang tunay na naglilingkod sa masa at sa bayan, buhay man ay ialay!
