Labor group raps Roxas, Neri for ‘selling out’ RP

Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II and Economic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri are being accused of "selling out" the country’s economic interests following the issuance of an Executive Order (EO) temporarily suspending the application of the tariff reduction schedule on petrochemical resins and certain plastic products under the Common Effective Preferential Tariff scheme for the ASEAN Free Trade Area.

Ernesto Arellano, National Federation of Labor (NFL) president and spokesman of the Plastics Union Labor Alliance (NFL), said that while EO 161 suspended the tariff reduction schedule on petrochemical resins and certain plastic products under the AFTA-CEPT, the EO still slashed the 15-percent tariff on petrochemical products to 10 percent while it maintained a five-percent tariff on plastics.

Arellano said petrochemical and plastic workers are worried over the possibility of massive job layoffs and industry closures with the reduction in tariff on petrochemical resins.

Arellano said President Arroyo "reneged on her Sept. 21, 2002 commitment to help local industries and workers by deferring the scheduled tariff cuts."

However, Arellano said "it is really Roxas and Neri who are to blame," adding that the "President’s intentions and credibility continues to be undermined by the very people who are supposed to implement her commitment and policy directives."

"The President had committed to workers that there would be a reform in the current tariff policy," he said.

But Neri and Roxas, according to Arellano, did not only fail to conduct the tariff review that the President directed but in fact, "railroaded the AFTA tariff cuts."

Thus, Arellano asked Roxas and Neri to "resign immediately for continuously undermining the policy of the President."

Arellano said "AFTA-CEPT has been a clear case of disastrous handling by the government and the workers and local industries will now have to bear the brunt of what has been a sell-out of our national economic interests."