US ties labor, IPR issues to garments bill

MANILA, Philippines – U.S. authorities have raised labor and intellectual property rights issues of the Philippines as deterrents to an early passage of the proposed garments and textile bill “Save Our Industries Act”, which seeks to revive the textile and garments industries of both the U.S. and the Philippines.

Thelma Dumpit-Murillo, director of the Garments and Textile Industry Development Office (GTIDO) of the Department of Trade and Industry, told reporters that labor and IP issues were raised by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) during the recent videoconference on the bilateral Philippines-US Trade and Investment Facilitation Agreement (TIFA).

According to Murillo, the USTR was not optimistic as to the passage of the “Save Our Industries Act” bill in the near term because there are labor rights and IP issues that have to be resolved by the Philippine government yet.

Murillo said that the Philippines side, which included the Department of Labor and Employment, has reiterated that all the issues raised by the U.S. authorities are already being addressed.

The Clothing Tripartite Council, which is composed of the DOLE, the private sector and the DTI, is also meeting to address the labor rights issues in the industry that the U.S. wants addressed. Murillo did not elaborate the labor rights issues being raised by the U.S.

On IP issues, the Philippines has been listed in the ordinary watchlist of IPR violators by the USTR for the past several years. The U.S. authorities want to see stricter enforcement of IP laws and convictions of IP violators. In the last Out-of-cycle Review, the USTR has specifically mentioned Quiapo as one of the sites in the country where IP rights have been flagrantly violated. The USTR has included Quiapo as among the 30 notorious sites of IP infringement activities in the world.

Aside from labor rights and IP issues, the U.S. has also raised the Administrative Order 22 of the Department of Agriculture, which actually pertains to the safe handling of meat imports, but the US sees it as a ploy to restrict the entry of its frozen meat imports.

“We have to hurdle all of those issues,” Murillo said.

Meantime, Murillo said that the Philippines had to retrieve the Save Act bill, which was earlier refiled by Senator John Ensign on his own initiative, because there were some provisions in the old bill that need to be removed otherwise it would contribute to the difficulty of passing the bill.

“We hope to refile the bill in June this year,” Murillo said.

The provisions that have to be removed are those that involved certain categories that were granted exemptions which may not sell well with U.S. garment manufacturers, who are also protecting their own domestic industry.

Murillo, however, refused to identify what provisions or garment categories these could be but said the Philippine side is willing to let go of these exemptions just to pave the way for the passage of the bill.

When asked which would weigh heavily – the labor and IPR issues or the provisions in the Save Act that need to be removed to facilitate the passage of the bill –, Murillo said the “labor and IP issues would weigh more” because the industry is ready to give up the exempted categories.

Already, the Philippines side has started some initiatives to push for the passage of the bill.

For one, the DTI has renewed the contract with lobby group SSA Consultants effective March 1, which is good for six months only or until September this year because after September the U.S. Congress would be in an election mode already.

The SSA consultants have also very specific timetables as to its deliverables like each month it should have this number of congressmen being lobbied to sponsor the bill.

Murillo said she is not privy to the exact amount of the contract but said this is lower than the previous contract with SSA. Murillo said the DTI has decided to renew the contract with SSA because they knew already of the history of the bill and that one of the consultants is a former undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. (BCM)