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PRESS RELEASE
Gov’t urged to accept Thai challenge, don’t sign new ASEAN trade pact
“Don’t ratify the ASEAN trade, if the Thai government wishes to. We cannot be cowed by that threat. After suffering from the deadly onslaught of two typhoons, our government should not sell out the interest of our own rice farmers. We should stand by our position that we can not just give away our tariff protection for rice.”
This was the reaction of the non-government organization Rice Watch and Action Network (R1) to the threat of Thailand during the ASEAN summit that it would not ratify the Asean Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) pact if it cannot get fair deals from the Philippines on the rice issue.
“We have said this time and again, our rice farmers can not afford to compete with the liberalized inflow of Thai rice that is much cheaper than our local produce. How can we possibly withstand it now that the government could not even give our own rice farmers due production support in the light of massive damages brought by typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng?” said Jessica Reyes Cantos, R1 lead convenor.
Cantos said the least that this government can do is to stick it out in our position of maintaining our high tariff protection until we can sufficiently assure the local rice industry of fair trade competition with other countries. “Whenever that is, only the government can possibly answer,” Cantos added.
“Under this very tight situation, we can not help but seek the accountability of the technocrats in the past and present administration who allowed our rice industry and agriculture in general to come to this pass. We have no one else to blame but them who have chosen to neglect our local agriculture sector while Thailand and our neighbors in Southeast Asia went miles away ahead of us,” Cantos said.
R1 said the government may be tempted to acquire more imported rice now that the country is facing possible shortfall as our rice farms were heavily damaged by the last two typhoons that hit the country. However, the group said this should not be under the ASEAN trade pact but rather, access the ASEAN rice reserve program.
“It will be more difficult to cop out of a trade pact that we will later prove to be damaging more than beneficial to our national interest,” Cantos said.
The group earlier urged Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap to use the ASEAN emergency rice reserves mechanism to access rice from other ASEAN-member countries at relatively stable prices.
REFERENCE: Jessica Reyes Cantos 0917-3200007
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