In the meantime and given the present global and national economic
crisis, we call on the government to adopt the following urgent reforms:
First, we need a breathing spell from the suffocating liberalization
commitments made by the government economic policymakers to the WTO,
AFTA and IMF. We call on the government to review and set aside the
tariff acceleration commitments unilaterally made by the economic
technocrats, increase the tariffs for products below the Philippine
bound rates to the WTO, and defer for five years our tariff and other
liberalization commitments to these institutions based on the tariff
rates in the year 2001, or even earlier.
A tariff deferment is consistent with the universally recognized
principle that developing countries can avail themselves of special-and-differential-treatment
privileges in order to prepare their economies to the challenges of
global competition. There should also be a no-nonsense drive against
smuggling and the unfair dumping of foreign goods into the Philippine
economy. In addition and in support of the move to ease the national
budgetary stress, we ask the government to impose a 10-percent surcharge
against all imports except on raw materials and machines needed by
local industry.
Second, in the light of the looming global recession, we support
the call to look inward and into the potentials of a population of
85 million as a market. However, the success of a domestic market-driven
growth depends on the capacity of the government to check smuggling,
prevent unfair dumping, promote the growth of local industry and agriculture
and develop a culture of patronizing Philippine-made products. This
is, therefore, the time to promote the buy-Filipino movement and create-a-Filipino-job
movement simultaneous with the campaign for local industry and agriculture
to upgrade their operations and exert efforts to produce cheaper but
higher quality products and services.
Finally, with the low level of foreign investments coming in despite
the liberalized investment regime, the country should exert greater
efforts in mobilizing local capital, in mobilizing the resources of
its own people. A starting point will be an aggressive campaign for
patriotic-minded Filipinos—Filipino industrialists and businessmen
who have brought out their capital out of exasperation with past government
failures, successful Filipinos overseas, returning migrant workers
and so o—to invest in job-creating economic projects in the
Philippines. Foreign investments will naturally gravitate to the country
once they see the flow of Filipino investments. There should also
be a way of encouraging overseas Filipino workers to invest part of
their savings on productive undertakings for their own future security.
Overall, what is really needed at all times is to mobilize the entire
populace in support of a common vision of development where every
concerned Filipino has a genuine stake to uphold and a role to play.
All Filipinos who care for their homeland—men and women, entrepreneurs
and workers here and abroad, in both the formal and informal economy,
farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, students, teachers, artists
and professionals—should be able to join hands and work together
toward a better and secure future.
This is why we share the call for a government of national unity—but
one that is solidly based on urgent social and economic reforms and
consultation with the productive sectors of society. Amid the present
economic crisis and the looming possibility of a Middle East war,
the government must by necessity be built upon the unity of both traditional
and nontraditional political and social forces representing the broadest
sectors of Philippine society and who are united on a minimum program
of reform and stabilization such as the one outlined above.
We need to revive the sense of economic nationalism and exert efforts
to apply it in whatever station of life we are in. We have to strengthen
economic nationalism as a fundamental principle of the Constitution
and safeguard it against amendments of any disguise. Above all, we
need to unite, drawing from our past struggles for nationhood and
the examples of our heroes, in support of the building of a nationalist
economy and a movement which will help put this vision into reality
and restore the Filipino sense of nationhood, pride and dignity.
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From abs-cbnNEWS.com
