October 25, 2006 · Posted in: Environment Watch, Governance, Public Health
JPEPA to encourage trade in hazardous and toxic waste
WHEN Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) with then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Helsinki during the European leg of her four-nation trip last September, she immediately heralded the fact that Japan has now become an alternative work destination for the country’s nurses and caregivers.
But now that the cat is out of the bag, Arroyo’s bilateral trade and investment commitment with Japan is not only about the export of our healthcare professionals to the Land of the Rising Sun and her government’s dreamt-about windfall from their yen-denominated remittances. As an agreement that commits both countries to remove barriers to investments and the trade of goods and services, the JPEPA actually covers a wide range of trade issues, and which apparently is turning out to be a bad deal for the Philippines.
Described by international trade experts as a “mega-treaty,” the JPEPA is an amalgam of a Bilateral Investment Treaty and a Bilateral Free Trade Agreement that adopts many key features of the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico. The NAFTA took 10 years of negotiations before it was finally signed.
Download the Japanese-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).
Some of the trade issues — trade in goods and services, movement of natural persons, intellectual property, customs procedure, rules of origin, dispute avoidance and settlement — are already covered by the Philippines’s existing commitments under the World Trade Organization (WTO). But a number of these areas, particularly dealing with investment, competition policy, and government procurement, fall under the so-called “Singapore issues” which have not made headway in the WTO talks with developing-country members insisting that the more fundamental and developmental issues (such as subsidies in agriculture and non-agricultural market access) be satisfactorily resolved, taking into account their developmental needs.
Since these issues have been temporarily shelved within the WTO multilateral trading system, a number of developed countries, including Japan, decided to pursue the said issues bilaterally, through preferential trading arrangements such as the JPEPA.
Such a combined treaty as the JPEPA, warned Philippine trade law experts Justice Florentino Feliciano and Prof. Meilou Sereno, would have difficulties that are “twice as large, twice as formidable” than if they were negotiated separately. Prof. Sereno also said that the JPEPA’s implications are “very far-reaching” that it may possibly require full-bodied legislation and/or amendments to existing legislation.
The two have cautioned the Philippine government to be “twice as awake, twice as vigilant” in determining whether the country is indeed ready to undertake a treaty of this nature, and that it should not be rushed into concluding and ratifying the JPEPA. (Testimonies of Feliciano and Sereno during the hearings of the Special Committee on Globalization of the House of Representatives can be accessed here.)
Yet after only two years of negotiations, despite the warnings, and with very little public consultation and information, the Philippine government proceeded to sign the JPEPA. With the full text of the agreement finally made public after its signing, oppositors, foremost of whom are environmentalists, are saying that it has become apparent that the JPEPA is going to be a bad deal for the Philippines, particularly as far as environmental protection is concerned.
For one, the JPEPA, they say, will legalize trade in hazardous and toxic waste. Lawyer Tanya Lat, trade law expert and legal counsel of the Akbayan party-list group, points to Article 29 of JPEPA’s Basic Agreement which provides that waste indeed forms part of the bilateral trade with Japan and are therefore entitled to preferential treatment granted under the agreement. These products include:
- “(i) articles collected in the Party which can no longer perform their original purpose in the Party nor are capable of being restored or repaired and which are fit only for disposal or for the recovery of parts or raw materials;
- “(j) scrap and waste derived from manufacturing or processing operations or from consumption in the Party and fit only for disposal or for the recovery of raw materials;
- “(k) parts or raw materials recovered in the Party from articles which can no longer perform their original purpose nor are capable of being restored or repaired; and
- “(l) goods obtained or produced in the Party exclusively from the goods referred to in subparagraphs (a) through (k) above.”
Such waste products, Lat says, are granted a preferential tariff rate of zero percent, which will be implemented once the JPEPA comes into force and effect — that is, after 2/3 of the Senate approves it.
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WASTE PRODUCTS GRANTED PREFERENTIAL ZERO-PERCENT TARIFF UNDER THE JPEPA
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TARIFF HEADING NO.
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DESCRIPTION
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MFN RATE*
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JPEPA TARIFF RATE
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2620.6000
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Ash and residues (other than from the manufacture of iron or steel), containing arsenic, mercury, thallium or their mixtures, of a kind used for the extraction of arsenic or those metals or for the manufacture of their chemical compounds
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3%
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0%
|
|
2621.1000
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Ash and residues from the incineration of municipal waste
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3%
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0%
|
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3006.80 (3006.8010, 3006.8090)
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Waste pharmaceuticals
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20%
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0%
|
|
38.25 (and its subheadings)
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Residual products of the chemical or allied industries, not elsewhere specified or included; municipal waste; sewage sludge; other wastes specified in Note 6 to this Chapter
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30%
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0%
|
|
3825.1000
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Municipal waste
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30%
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0%
|
|
3825.2000
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Sewage sludge
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30%
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0%
|
|
3825.3010
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Clinical waste — adhesive dressings and other articles having adhesive layer; wadding gauze bandages, surgical gloves
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30%
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0%
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3825.3090
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Other clinical waste
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30%
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0%
|
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3825.4100, 3825.4900
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Waste organic solvents — halogenated, and other
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30%
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0%
|
|
3825.6100, 2825.6900
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Other wastes from other chemical or allied industries — containing organic constituents, other
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30%
|
0%
|
|
3825.5000
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Wastes of metal pickling liquors, hydraulic fluids, brake fluids and anti-freeze fluids
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30%
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0%
|
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6309.00
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Worn clothing and other worn articles
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Prohibited importation under RA 4653
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0%
|
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6310.00
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Used or new rags, scrap twine, cordage, rope and cables and worn out articles of twine, cordage, rope or cables, of textile materials
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Prohibited importation under RA 4653
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0%
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* MFN stands for “most-favored-nation.” The MFN rate is the uniform tariff rate that is accorded by the Philippines to all its other trading partners.
Lat says that the Tariff Commission even previously identified these waste products — most of which are hazardous or toxic — as “goods of social and environmental concerns” whose importation is closely being monitored and controlled.
Thus, reducing tariff to zero percent, she says, is a blanket proposal/invitation to make the Philippines the dumping ground for Japanese waste. (Download Akbayan’s briefing paper on JPEPA.)
Senior Trade Undersecretary Thomas G. Aquino, chief negotiator in the JPEPA talks, admitted that waste — even toxic and hazardous ones — was included because of the nature of the agreement as an “all-trade” pact. He, however, allayed fears that prohibited products under Philippine laws will not be allowed to enter the country.
Demetrio L. Ignacio, undersecretary at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) also downplayed the concerns of enviromentalists saying that “it (JPEPA) will not violate our laws in the sense that they (toxic and hazardous waste) will not be coming in because they are banned in the first place.”
Enviromental groups, however, seem the least appeased, pointing to the DENR’s lackluster performance as far as environmental protection is concerned. They also stress that the JPEPA provisions violate and contradict both Philippine laws and an international convention against the illegal dumping of toxic and hazardous wastes, which are as follows:
- Under the Constitution, the State is mandated to promote the people’s right to health (Art. II, Sec. 15) and right to a balanced and healthful ecology (Art. II, Sec. 16).
- Republic Act No. 6969, the Toxic Substance and Hazardous and Nuclear Waste Act of 1990, expressly prohibits the entry of hazardous wastes into and their disposal within the country, for whatever purpose. Mere entry for purposes of transit is expressly prohibited, violation of which is subject to criminal penalties ranging from 12-20 years imprisonment.
- Allowing the entry of the highly toxic incinerator ash under the JPEPA makes a mockery of the Clean Air Act of 1999 (Republic Act No. 8749) which banned the use of incinerators in the country.
- Under Republic Act No. 4653, goods under heading nos. 63.09 (worn clothing and other worn articles) and 63.10 (used or new rags, scrap twine, cordage, rope and cables and worn out articles of twine, cordage, rope or cables, of textile materials) are likewise prohibited from being commercially imported into the Philippines. Violations are subject to imprisonment between 2-5 years.
- The JPEPA also directly conflicts with the country’s commitment under the Basel Convention, which was adopted in 1989 by 133 countries (including the Philippines and Japan) to minimize the production and regulate the trans-boundary movement of hazardous and toxic materials.
19 Responses to JPEPA to encourage trade in hazardous and toxic waste
Diego K. Guerrero
October 26th, 2006 at 2:43 am
We hope that the Philippine Senate will not ratify the signed Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA). Mrs. Gloria Arroyo should accept dumping of toxic and hazardous material waste inside Malacanang Palace compound not the entire 7,100 islands. She is considered a traitor, bogus president and working against the interests of the Filipino people and the environment. Dumping of toxic waste in the Philippines is not acceptable. No Way Jose’!
baycas
December 1st, 2006 at 8:06 am
alecks,
mlq has cited this in his november 30 blogpost. snide remarks were leveled on pcij. part of the article reads:
obviously the manila standard writer didn’t read the whole pdf you’ve uploaded. i just thought you may want to look at it and possibly comment if ever deemed necessary.
Alecks Pabico
December 1st, 2006 at 10:16 am
Thanks, Baycas. I wonder what made her think we’re making a position when we only tried to report on the issue. And note that we made no pretenses who/what our sources were. Neither did we try to pass the report off as a comprehensive analysis of the agreement.
On her beef about the 153-page downloadable pdf file of the treaty, that document pertains to the basic and implementing agreement that the Department of Trade and Industry made available on its site:
The rest of the 965 (not 933) pages consist of the agreement’s annexes — downloadable with no privileged access necessary.
Well, she should at least be thankful that the link to the 153-page reading material provided her with something to comment on.
baycas
December 1st, 2006 at 3:33 pm
i know, i know…hahaha…(borrowing her lines).
…and to think she said she read the entire pdf and net searched on the topic? small wonder why she had the headache! she should have at least printed the pdf or asked a 5th-grader to google on jpepa…
i believe her blunder is on print too? i hope she’ll realize it and rectify it.
i wonder why she’s critical on you guys? could it be personal?
Alecks Pabico
December 2nd, 2006 at 1:10 am
I’d rather not speculate on that. 😉
jr_lad
December 2nd, 2006 at 10:05 pm
baycas di ba sia yung sumbongan ni benignO? kaya siguro may sama ng loob. hehehe…
baycas
December 3rd, 2006 at 8:53 pm
oo yata, jr_lad…
may sama ng loob man o wala, kahit papaano bumibisita pa rin siya dito sa pcij…kahit na sa paraang panlalait ang pakay niya.
binisita ko na rin ang blog nya kasi baka ang alam niya nakapuntos siya laban sa pcij…bagaman maamo ang dating – di gaya ng kaniyang panlilibak kina alecks.
jr_lad
December 3rd, 2006 at 10:01 pm
nabisita ko na rin yan last year. remember nagcomment si GB aka rizalist tungkol sa isang topic i think about “komiks” yung me gawa nagsumbong din sa kanya dahil kinopya raw ng PCIJ sa book nila. hindi naman magaspang ang pagkasabi ni GB parang nagtatanong lang naban kaagad. katwiran nia kanya raw yung blog. : ) i remember nagcomment ka rin sa post na yun. baka naiinggit lang sa dami ng awards ng PCIJ.
She Rules the Universe but... « The Village Tickler
May 30th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
[…] Miss Japan Riyo Mori was crowned as this year’s Miss Universe but for sure as ambassadress of goodwill she won’t be concern whether her country is legalizing trade in hazardous and toxic wastes through JPEPA and at the same time, she won’t be concern on a number of our OFWs working in the Land of the Rising Sun. […]
The Unlawyer » Back To School, Back To Work
June 4th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
[…] One pending matter that will in all likelihood not be attended to in the waning days of the 13th Congress is the ratification of the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA). Inside PCIJ thinks the JPEPA is bad news for the country. […]
Jim Santos
June 5th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
The JPEPA and its Annexes can be accessed in DTI website – more than 900 pages. A very complicated agreement with numerous annexes/references to WTO, GATT, other international agreements, etc. Some items such as the description of the products or goods are not even mentioned directly on the agreement, you need to refer to prior agreements (executed 2 or 3 years ago) in order to ascertain what products are being referred to.
Aside from wastes – toxic or not to be exported by Japan to Phils and Japan’s concession in allowing our caregivers/nurses to work in Japan, the market access for Phils/Japan under JPEPA are mentioned below.
In market access on agricultural products granted by Japan in favor of the Phils, it allowed, at minimal tariff rates, products of Phils covering sugar/mascovado & molasses (2,300MT to increase to 3,400MT in 4 years at half of existing tariff rate), chicken meat (3,000MT to increase to 7,000MT in 5 years at 8.5% tariff), pineapples (1,000MT to increase to 1,800MT in 5 years at 0% tariff), fishery products like tuna (to eliminate tariff in 5 years), small bananas (no limit at 10 – 20% tariff). While Japan’s agricultural products and fruits are allowed market access to Phils at 0% tariff.
On the other hand, Phils granted Japan market access on industrial goods such as iron/steel (175,000MT to 207,500 in 3 years at 0% tariff), auto and auto parts at 0% tariff, electrical and electronic appliances and parts at 0% tariff, textiles and apparels at 0%. The combined amount of these imports to Phils would run to millions of dollars compared to paltry agricultural exports of Phils to Japan mentioned above. On iron/steel alone, it will hurt the local steel industries and may even cause numerous job displacements. Understandably, Japan eliminated its tariff for industrial goods coming from Phils (which is already 0% for electronic parts such as microchips etc – produced by Japanese corps) – actually there is no such Phil industrial goods manufactured by a Filipino owned corp that is being exported to Japan.
In addition, Japanese commercial fishing industry is allowed unhampered access to Phil EEZs as provided in Article 28 & 29, Chapter 3 of JPEPA. In my estimate/guesstimate, the yearly catch by Japanese commercial fishing fleets could even reached around 100,000MT to 500,000MT with equivalent value of $500M to $2.5B! (certainly huge) – this quantity is not far off if Japan will deploy a number of its 8,000 ton factory ships grazing Phils EEZs – all these income goes to the pockets of Japs and some hare-brained locals. The impact to the Phil fishery resources as well as to the local tuna industry will be worse because it will completely deplete Phils EEZs fishery resources in a span of 5 years – leaving the elimination of tariff rate by Japan on fishery products on the 5th year meaningless. I can only surmise that Japan’s reason for pursuing this can be due to the proximity of Phils to Japan, the depletion of other tuna areas (Atlantic, Indian Ocean, Eastern/Central Pacific), ensuring the survival of its fishing industry even it will be detrimental to Phil tuna industry and to maintain the stability of the prices of tuna in the near future which will most likely spike up due to supply constraints.
JPEPA could have been a good agreement if the terms were fair and has taken into consideration the essence of “reciprocity and equality” – a benchmark used by most countries in entering into free trade agreements and taking into consideration that Phils and Japan does not stand in equal footing. In this context, Japan has to yield more concessions than Phils would give. But the outcome of the JPEPA was quite lopsided in favor of Japan.
I think I barely scratched the entire agreement. There are still a lot of areas to be studied in JPEPA such as on land ownership, access on mineral/forest lands and coastal resources, repatriation of capital/profits, intellectual property rights, etc. Thanks to Phil negotiators/DTI they are mum on disclosing these things or simply because they don’t understand also the ramifications of JPEPA?
JPEPA. <japan - philippines economic partnership agreement> - noypi.org - Eh kasi Pinoy!
October 15th, 2007 at 8:11 am
[…] the PCIJ analysis of JPEPA: INSIDE PCIJ ? JPEPA to encourage trade in hazardous and toxic waste Eversince, parang napaka-lampa ng mga international negotiators natin. Dahil kaya ito sa […]
inusam_z18
April 30th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
JPEPA has been around for quite some time now, and up to now, it boggles my mind on why we would consider entering such an agreement. It’s a stupid move. I have a feeling that the government will gain something big from it, but definitely the Philippines won’t.
Despite a considerable number of people against it, it is still very imminent. why? why? why?
jcc
April 30th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
hold your horses guys. i think it is better for PCIJ to have bloggers who visit its site just to unload his/her “panlalait”. it only goes to show that you can tolerate some other point of view though how malicious it is.. and malice is often discernible and it self-destruct, including the blogger herself/himself. other than that, it enhances PCIJ’s credibility as a forum for free exercise of ideas, even of ideas we hated and disliked.
as regards the waste in the JPEPA, someone suggested that they be dumped at Malacanang Palace…fine with me, but offload also some of it in Congress Building, Supreme Court, and Media Outlet Buildings too.
toxic waste comes in varied forms and the worst kind is mental dishonesty and demagoguery. i would like to think that we have this worst kind of toxic waste in all levels of our bureucracy and in our media conglomerates.
nosi balasi
May 1st, 2008 at 2:35 pm
yun nga tingin ng mga hapon sa pinoy…basura….tsk tsksabi nga sa post:
For one, the JPEPA, they say, will legalize trade in hazardous and toxic waste. Lawyer Tanya Lat, trade law expert and legal counsel of the Akbayan party-list group, points to Article 29 of JPEPA’s Basic Agreement which provides that waste indeed forms part of the bilateral trade with Japan and are therefore entitled to preferential treatment granted under the agreement. These products include:
* “(i) articles collected in the Party which can no longer perform their original purpose in the Party nor are capable of being restored or repaired and which are fit only for disposal or for the recovery of parts or raw materials;
* “(j) scrap and waste derived from manufacturing or processing operations or from consumption in the Party and fit only for disposal or for the recovery of raw materials;
* “(k) parts or raw materials recovered in the Party from articles which can no longer perform their original purpose nor are capable of being restored or repaired; and
* “(l) goods obtained or produced in the Party exclusively from the goods referred to in subparagraphs (a) through (k) above.”
– take note ha…eto ang matinding pagtingin ng hapon sa atin…ayon sa Post…”can no longer perform their original purpose”, “fit only for disposal” ” scrap and waste”…sige yakapin pa natin ng yakapin ang mga hapon…matagal na ito…i remember one time…it was 3-5 years ago…may one full load 40 footer container VAN na puro toxic waste ang laman (diapers, used syringe, used medical gloves, used and soiled toilet tissue…etc)ang nabuksan ng Customs…akala nila rapapips…yun pala basura…at kahit anong gawin nila sa dokumento wala sila nakasuhan kahit anti-dumping law…e yun pala protected na ng JPEPA…walastik hanep pa!!!
The Daily PCIJ » Blog Archive » SC ruling on JPEPA: Shackled by ‘entropy of the old tradition of secrecy’
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:46 am
[…] disclose details of the negotiations between the Philippines and Japan in relation to the Japan-Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA). Obviously, it was an advice that went largely unheeded as majority of his colleagues upheld for a […]
The Daily PCIJ » Blog Archive » JPEPA: A case of ‘giving away everything but getting nothing’
August 30th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
[…] consultant Edna Espos offers her own critique of the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), giving senators yet more reasons why they should not ratify the proposed treaty, whose many […]
h.hernaez
September 30th, 2008 at 10:52 am
call not to ratify but junk JPEPA!
Joseph Tabirara
March 18th, 2012 at 10:03 am
@Jim Santos, may I please use your comments for my master in customs administration class report? It will be a written report to be submitted to my professor. I find your comment sensible and I think it will be of great use if the same will be included in my report. Thanks so much.