The country will not be deluged with toxic and hazardous wastes from Japan under the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), Trade Secretary Peter Favila said yesterday.
Favila, at a press conference, said there is a "double firewall" that protects some countries, including the Philippines and Japan, from being made into dumping grounds of one another’s hazardous wastes: the Basle Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste and Their Disposal and the World Trade Organization (WTO) provision on such materials.
But Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the government will still look into the allegations by environmentalists.
"We will not allow anything that is against our environment. If it is against our environment, that is against our interest," Ermita told reporters.
"It is about time that we take a look (at) it (as) this thing came about," Ermita said, admitting that he was not fully aware of the provisions of JPEPA.
Favila said that while the lowering of tariffs on certain goods, including toxic wastes, would "theoretically" allow easy entry of these materials to the Philippines, local and international laws provide the necessary restrictions.
He said JPEPA, being a comprehensive free trade agreement, had to include 90 percent of products covered by tariffs. He said the questionable provision in the trade pact, Article 29, "actually has no validity but was part of an overall negotiating strategy."
He said the controversial provision actually allowed the Philippines to negotiate aggressively for the entry of more Filipino nurses and caregivers to Japan. He denied that there had been an attempt to hide the provision.
In fact, the agreement is now in the Department of Trade and Industry’s website.
He also emphasized the need for strengthening bilateral deal with Japan in view of greater competition from other global markets. "Without the cover of a bilateral agreement, Philippine exporters’ share of the Japanese market - our second largest export market - will be further eroded by countries aggressively pursuing negotiations with Japan," he said.
Meanwhile, Sen. Pia Cayetano said JPEPA "would go through the eye of the needle" once it is submitted for Senate concurrence.
"I am supportive of government efforts to give our health workers access to the Japanese labor market, but I don’t think trading this for the environment and the health of our own people should even be considered," she said.
She said Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes, in an earlier budget hearing, confirmed that JPEPA would indeed allow the entry of waste from Japan, provided the procedure is in accordance with the Philippines’ and global environmental laws.
Cayetano found the agreement unacceptable, noting that the government has not even fully implemented the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 despite its passage into law almost six years ago.
Sen. Jamby Madrigal said JPEPA was "a sellout," and that "Mrs. Arroyo sold the interest of the Filipino people’’ when she signed the deal. Madrigal said Congress should investigate the matter.
Meanwhile, Angel Lagdameo, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said the agreement will make the Philippines a dumpsite of Japan.
"I feel bad because the whole world as well as Filipinos in other countries would know that the Philippines has now become a dumpsite of Japan," Lagdameo said in Filipino in an interview with Church-run Radio Veritas.
"This is not a good picture and I think this will definitely be bad for environment," he added.
An environmentalist group Ecowaste Coalition (EC), for its part, said JPEPA would "only exacerbate the country’s toxic woes."
"The Philippines produces some 2.5 million tons of hazardous waste each year, and it is not known how much of this is treated ecologically by generators or by the 87 accredited hazardous waste treaters and recyclers in the country," the group said in an email to The STAR.
Greenpeace branded the JPEPA as a "toxic trade of the worst kind," even as it asked the Senate to intervene and reject the JPEPA,
and ratify the Basel Ban, an amendment to the Basel Convention.
"This kind of legal toxic dumping is utterly unjust, and its signing by the Philippine and Japanese governments is nothing short of criminal," said Von Hernandez, campaigns director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
Another environmentalist group, Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment also assailed JPEPA.
"The Japanese government continues to treat our country as a convenient dumpsite while President Arroyo doesn’t give a hoot about whether this is illegal, violative of national sovereignty, harmful, and insulting to the Filipino people, just as long as Japanese loans and investments flow in," said Clemente Bautista, national coordinator of Kalikasan. – With Aurea Calica, Christina Mendez, Edu Punay, Katherine Adraneda