Farmers, fisherfolk will be worst hit by CAFTA

MANILA, Philippines - This is a reaction to the news article titled “Free trade bad for Asean, warns solon” last January 5. Aside from this the sectors that the China-Asean Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) will primarily hit will be the millions of farmers and fisher folk in the region. It will also worsen the impact of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-World Trade Organization (GATT-WTO) on the Southeast Asian region particularly the Philippines.

CAFTA will just mean further suffering and bankruptcy to us peasants because it will inevitably entail more land use conversions from agricultural lands and coastal areas to commercial, residential or industrial lands. It will also worsen crop conversions from our staple to high value crops to be exported. This will definitely imperil our food self-sufficiency and put us at the mercy of rice exporting countries. Add to this the fact that there will be a deluge of cheap imported agricultural products that will imperil the livelihood of us peasants who comprise 75 percent of our population.

Like the GATT-WTO, the CAFTA will just be full of promises that it can never fulfill. Cases in point are the millions of so-called jobs that it will create as well as the lowering of the prices of goods and services. These up till now have remained promises and what is worse is that the opposite happened. ­— FELIX PAZ, Chairman, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas-Bikol (KMP-Bikol), Barangay Alcala, Daraga, Albay