What's On & Expat - Philippines

Hilton in the Community Foundation donated PhP1.4 million to Gawad Kalinga Foundation to help rebuild the nation after the most recent calamity that struck the Philippines, specifically the Bicol and Marinduque provinces.
   Hilton Cebu Resort & Spa’s corporate social responsibility arm identified two Gawad Kalinga projects in the Bicol region: Taysan and Daraga in Legazpi City, Albay and Anislag. The funds are to be divested to construct and rehabilitate the schools where classes were temporarily held in a tent. “Through your help, our pre-schoolers (children from 6-7 years old) will now have a decent school,” said Eric Salvino, a Gawad Kalinga volunteer.
   I was moved by the damage and the magnitude of the disaster but on the other hand, I am also impressed with Gawad Kalinga, and even the work and cooperation of other organizations in the area,” said Hilton Cebu Resort & Spa General Manager Peter Pedersen on his personal site visit to in Legazpi City

   “Supporting Young People Worldwide” is the mission of Hilton in the Community Foundation. By making charitable grants, the Foundation aims to support activities in education and health to equip individuals and relieve suffering. Additionally, during times of disaster, the Foundation aims to respond quickly to support relief efforts. “Having seen first hand the projects which the foundation is helping to support, I can assure our hardworking fundraisers and donors that every penny is being put to very good use,” Hilton in the Community Foundation President Ian Carter and Chief Executive Officer for International Operations of the Hilton Hotels.
   Gawad Kalinga is a Philippine movement launched last 2003 which aims to uplift poverty through holistic program of restoring the dignity of the Filipinos and uniting them under one common cause—the fight against poverty. What started as a youth program for a religious organization has transformed into a nation building group now on its fourth year and rapidly increasing its template of poverty alleviation locally.

Militant Groups Call
for Senate to Junk JPEPA

By Katrina N. Cabanos
 

Oblivious to the scorching midday sun, protesters from the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) or Solidarity of Filipino Workers recently filed up outside the Senate building. Armed with banners and mega-phones, members of the militant workers union were bent on getting their voices heard by legislators.
   This demonstration is only one among the scores of anti-JPEPA rallies that have assailed the Senate since the weekly public JPEPA hearings began. JPEPA is the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement, a free trade pact entered by the Philippines with the industrial giant. Plans have been laid as early as December 2002 by the former Prime Minister of Japan Junichiro Koizumi and Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The agreement that was reached after four years of closed-door negotiations brought about a deluge of protests from different sectors when it was finally signed last year.
   The free trade agreement has been branded as inequitable and unfavorable for the Philippines. Aside from lowering tariffs it will ease Japanese labor restrictions to make it more accessible for Filipinos and will liberalize investment conditions in the Philippines for Japanese corporations. The treaty is all encompassing, touching issues in trade, goods, services intellectual property and rules of origin. Developed countries opted to deal with these issues bilaterally when the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round of negotiations proved to be fruitless.
   While Japan has similar pacts with other countries, including Singapore, Malaysia and Mexico, this is the first bilateral trade agreement with the Philippines. It has many key features of the North American Free Trade Agreement

(NAFTA), except the NAFTA took ten years to negotiate.
   Both the Japanese and the Philippine government envisage favorable results for their economies and at least two organizations expressed their support for JPEPA on two separate occasions, the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) and the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP). FPI president Jesus Arranza went as far as saying that the agreement will open the Japan labor market to Filipino professionals, including doctors, nurses and engineers, and increase Japanese investments in the country. Many are skeptical as to whether Filipino workers can penetrate the Japanese labor market and benefit from Yen remittances. Nurses, for example, would have to take the Nursing Board Exam in Niponggo before qualifying to work in Japan.
   The militant fisherfolk group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) is among the groups that are vehemently against JPEPA. In an interview of Information Officer Gerry Corpuz he said that all the talk on the Philippines profiting from the agreement is pure propaganda. The Japanese have clearly more to gain. “Japan can explore the country’s exclusive economic zone and Japan with its advance technology can explore the territorial waters of the Philippines for fish, particularly tuna. The small bancas (small fishing boats) of Filipino fishermen cannot explore the waters of Japan because the backward technology will not allow them to do so. So even if we allow Japan to fish here, and the Japanese government, for the sake of argument allows us to fish in Japanese territorial waters will that be fair?” It is more evocative of a treaty between a guppy and a shark than two equals.

Japanese Aid Spurs Speculation

By Ana Kristine B. Valenzuela
 

The Japanese fertilizers worth ¥300 million or PhP125 million were formally turned over under the 30th Japan Grant Assistance for Underprivileged Farmers Program in Iloilo City. However, this caused a local fisherfolk group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) to express consternation on the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) deal.
  Present at the formal turnover in Iloilo City last September 6 were Minister Akira Sugiyama and Japanese Embassy’s Minister for Economic Affairs and Department of Agriculture Undersecretary and National Agricultural and Fishery Council executive director Bernie Fondevilla. Sugiyama remarked that the grant epitomizes Japan’s unwavering efforts to support the Philippine government’s food security program as well as provide renewed hopes and greater livelihood opportunities for poor Filipino farmers.
   Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya), however countered that the PhP125 million-fertilizer grant was meant to strengthen the JPEPA on the part of the Senate. “That’s part of the tactics of the Japanese government. They are providing grant aid, such as this, to soften the position of the Senate and to convince the Filipino people that it is an agreement that will benefit millions of Filipinos. This is an indirect bribe just to accept a one-sided agreement,” said Information Officer Gerry Corpuz.
   Much hype has been committed to the Japanese grant given this year even if Japan has been rendering fertilizers and the like for thirty years now. The fertilizer grant has been allotted to farmer-beneficiaries who could seldom meet their families’ basic needs and whose landholdings are two hectares or below. It has been handed out in selected nine provinces arriving in three separate shipments in the ports of Bataan, Batangas and Iloilo.
   “It (the grant) is to convince the senators and the Filipino public in general that the Philippines is gaining a lot from Japan,” said Corpuz. “Although this kind of support has been ongoing for thirty years since the 1970s, we believe that it is still tied to JPEPA. Everything that Japan has

given to the Philippines has something in return. So, this is only part of that continuing agreement between the Philippines and Japan that the country should give in to Japanese transnational corporations in exchange for this small grant.”
  Japan has been giving grants to poor Filipino farmers since 1977. The Philippines was one of the six countries selected for the Grant Assistance for Underprivileged Farmers Program (formerly 2KR Program).
   “Proceeds from the sale of the ammonium sulphate fertilizers will be utilized to fund social development and agriculture and fishery-related projects that will benefit underprivileged farmers and fisherfolk,” Fondevilla said. “The Department of Agriculture is targeting marginalized farmers using certified seeds and good seeds in irrigated and non-irrigated upland and lowland areas in selected provinces covered by the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) Rice Program of President Arroyo as the beneficiaries of the Japan grant.”
   According to Corpuz, the Philippines will lose USD242.5 million once Japan has been allowed to fish for tuna, part of the deal in the JPEPA. A beating to the promised USD100 million for the Philippine fruits allowed for Japanese market when the JPEPA has been corresponded upon.
   The Japanese embassy does not see it this way. “The Government of Japan shares the view with the Government of the Philippines that the JPEPA will be conducive to the further increase of trade and investment between the two countries and thus further promote the bilateral relations. The Government of Japan, therefore, sincerely hopes that the JPEPA will come into force at the earliest possible date,” the Japanese Embassy said in a statement.
  Furthermore, Fondevilla responded defending the fertilizer grant, “This grant is in sync with the Department of Agriculture’s five-point program to boost farm productivity and ensure greater profitability for Filipino farmers and fisherfolk through higher public spending on infrastructure, technology and extension services, and post-harvest and storage facilities; expanding access to rural credit; and opening more markets for Philippine farm produce here and overseas.”