Try harder, Palace tells officials handling JPEPA

Officials involved in the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) would have to try harder to convince the Senate to ratify the treaty.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said officials of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) should justify JPEPA and convince the Senate of its benefits to the country.

“I guess we’ll have to try harder. We’ll have to show the benefits and remove any doubt that the principal concerns have been adequately addressed,” Bunye said.

At the conclusion of a committee hearing on the JPEPA last week, senators, including those allied with the administration, remained unconvinced about the need to ratify JPEPA.

Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, a close ally of President Arroyo, said DTI officials failed to convince her colleagues to support the JPEPA during the hearing.

Santiago added that even she would have a hard time defending the JPEPA for the administration after hearing the shallow arguments of the DTI officials.

Bunye pointed out the officials should have stressed before the Senate that the principal concerns about JPEPA are unfounded, particularly on the issue of waste disposal.

Since the agreement was signed in Helsinki, Finland in September 2006, concerns have been raised in the Philippines that the JPEPA would pave the way for the dumping of toxic wastes from Japan in the Philippines.

Both the Japanese and Philippine governments have denied exporting the waste to the Philippines.

“We have to tell the Senate that the word of the Japanese officials should be good enough guarantee that there would be no dumping of waste. We’re also signatories of the Basel Convention and that act is prohibited under the convention,” Bunye said.

The JPEPA is expected to open up trade further between the two countries just as it has in the other countries with the same arrangement.

But under Philippine law, all treaties and international agreements must go through the Senate for ratification before they can be implemented.

Concerned groups raised the possibility that Japan may be allowed to dump toxic wastes in the country after the ratification of JPEPA.

Groups led by the Basel Action Network, Ecological Waste Coalition, and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives said JPEPA will allow the deluge of hazardous wastes and “a host of globally-banned and controlled substances or chemicals” into the country, which could be done under supposed economic provisions of the treaty.   – With Katherine Adraneda