Japan’s Diet accused of pressuring RP on JPEPA ratification

Activists campaigning against the ratification of the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) yesterday accused the Japanese Diet of “discreetly pressuring” the Philippine Senate into approving the bilateral pact.

The Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) said the Japanese Diet was compelling the Senate to act in favor of JPEPA during a recent event where a Philippine Senator was deluged with questions on why the agreement is still not ratified despite the fact that it had been signed by President Arroyo and former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi almost two years ago.

The Japanese Diet is the lawmaking-body of Japan that consists of 480 members of the House of Representatives and 242 members of the House of Councilors.

According to the fisherfolk group’s national leader, Fernando Hicap, the event was attended by Senator Richard Gordon, who was in Japan two weeks ago on an official visit.

Hicap claimed that Gordon was overwhelmed with questions from members of the Japanese Diet regarding the status of JPEPA.

Quoting Gordon, the Pamalakaya leader said that the Japanese lawmakers asked Gordon why the Philippine Senate still has not ratified the treaty, when all other economic partnership agreements with other Asian countries have gone into force.

“Senator Gordon was told by Japanese lawmakers to have the Senate ratification of JPEPA at the earliest possible time. It is an indication that the imperial government of Japan will use political and diplomatic pressure to have the economic partnership agreement ratified at all cost,” said Hicap, who is also a convener of the No Deal JPEPA, and chair of the environmental group Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment.

“Of course Gordon will neither oppose the observation of Japanese lawmakers nor explain the position of the broad opposition movement against JPEPA, simply because this Subic-bred American boy is also in favor of JPEPA, and he does not want to offend the Japanese government in the name of tin cup diplomacy,” Hicap said.

Pamalakaya asserted anew that JPEPA would allow Japanese ships to fish inside the country’s territorial waters, as provided by the agreement’s provisions pertaining to national treatment and most favored status.

This provision, Pamalakaya noted, is meant for the benefit and survival of Japan’s tuna industry at the expense of the P18-billion local tuna industry. Thus, if JPEPA is ratified, Pamalakaya said around 180,000 tuna fishermen and tuna fish workers all over the Philippines would be displaced.

Meantime, Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago said last Monday that the ratification of JPEPA will be delayed anew as the two parties need to talk about the conditions recommended by the two Senate committees before ratifying the treaty.

Tokyo is now willing to negotiate on the conditions, she said, while the senators will also study the accord before debating on it.

Santiago said it was “highly laudable” of Japanese Ambassador Makoto Katsura to explore the possibility of an “exchange of notes” that would facilitate Senate concurrence of JPEPA.

Instead of delivering a sponsorship speech on JPEPA as scheduled last Monday so the plenary debates could start, Santiago said she would first distribute copies of the joint committee report prepared by the foreign relations panel, which she chairs, and trade and commerce, chaired by Sen. Manuel Roxas II.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo also asked Santiago’s committee to defer the debates on JPEPA so he could first discuss the appropriate exchange of notes with Japan.

“This is why your two committees will be suspending or deferring action on JPEPA for an unspecified length of time. We, of course will try our best to speed up the concurrence process,” Santiago said.

If the exchange of notes materializes and becomes final, Santiago said it would become an integral part of JPEPA and the “committees will recommend not conditional concurrence but simple concurrence because by that time, in effect the treaty will already have complied with all the necessary constitutional requirements.”

“The reason why we did not use the word amend or amendment of the JPEPA is, strictly speaking in international law, the Senate has no power to amend a treaty but in fact, in other countries notably the United States, they get around this absolute prohibition by means of documents which they sometimes call reservation or understanding or declaration or exchanges of notes,” she said.

But the senator said a conditional concurrence in a treaty had a precedent in the Philippines.

She said this was when the Philippines, during the Martial Law years, through the unicameral Congress or Batasan, concurred in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea with conditions.

Santiago said that in a nutshell, the Philippines “is merely asking for the same concessions that Japan has already granted in its economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with such countries as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei and Indonesia.   — With Aurea Calica