By IBON Foundation
April 27, 2010
The last three decades have seen ever greater attacks on the livelihoods and welfare of Filipino peasants. Neoliberal policies of ‘free market’ globalization have been implemented amid long-standing problems of landlessness and monopolies on rural resources, credit and power – agricultural trade liberalization, state neglect of small rural producers, and promoting the interests of foreign and domestic agri-business.
These have resulted in severe economic displacement, crop and land use conversions, deepening rural poverty, diminishing food self-sufficiency and the agricultural sector failing to generate jobs, raise countryside incomes and act as a foundation for economic development. Elites in corporate agriculture have meanwhile continued to profit at the expense of the sector’s direct producers. The return of sharply rising global food prices this year only further underscores the dangers for the people, economy and the country if the liberalization-induced agricultural decline is not arrested.
The Philippines – including its agricultural sector – has been progressively liberalizing since the 1980s ostensibly to improve the efficiency, productivity and incomes of domestic producers. The first phase of the Tariff Reform Program (TRP) started in the early 1980s, followed by the second phase in 1991 and the third phase in 1995. When the country acceded to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994, quantitative restrictions even on sensitive agricultural products (except rice) were replaced by nominal tariffs which were themselves systematically lowered. In 1996 a tariff quota system for sensitive agricultural products was instituted including Minimum Access Volume (MAV) provisions.