‘Liberalization killed PH manufacturing sector’

MANILA, Philippines – The move of Philippine negotiators to open the domestic market rapidly has killed local manufacturers, a senior member of the Senate said.

“We (the Philippines ) were fascinated with liberalization and the WTO that we opened the country too fast, ahead of China and India ,” Sen. Manuel Villar said. “Now we want to level the playing field, but there are no more players. They (local manufacturers) are all dead,” he added.

He noted that Philippine trade negotiators at the World Trade Organization (WTO) bungled in the job and betrayed the interest of local industries.

According to Villar, the interest of the Filipino manufacturers have been left out and waylaid in the rush towards globalization that there are now only a few of them standing. Villar made this statement during the Senate hearing on the proposed creation of a Philippine Trade Representative Office which was attended by Fair Trade Alliance, private sector, and line agencies.

Villar said the country “could have done better” in liberalization in a way that could have preserved the manufacturing sector. He said that while the country cannot turn back the clock and need not go back to protectionism, the Philippines could have liberalized slowly, like China and India.“ We were very quick. We rushed,” he said.

According to him, many of the few surviving Philippine-based manufacturers are foreign-owned.

Villar said that instead of creating more industries and causing vibrant competition, deregulation and liberalization caused the emergence of cartels and killed the local manufacturing sector.

“My question is whether our present trade negotiators still have that position. Or do our economists now find passé the Washington Consensus?, he asked. “Even the US is now shifting towards a bit more protectionist,” he noted. But a line agency representative informed the senator that the US is the most protectionist of all developed countries.

The Washington Consensus refers to a market-based 10-point economic policy prescription to developing countries by Washington-based institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and the US Treasury Department, which some critics describe as neoliberalism.

Fairtrade is an alliance of local industries, workers, peasants, consumers, academe and other sectors advocating for a “calibrated approach” towards globalization, liberalization, deregulation and privatization. The group is supporting the creation of a Philippine Trade Representative Office authored by Senator Teofisto Guingona, Jr. and Deputy Speaker Lorenzo Tanada III at the House of Representatives (HoR) to represent the interest of Filipino industries, manufacturers, farmers and workers in international trade negotiations. –Ma. Elisa P. Osorio, The Philippine Star