Development Roundtable Series (DRTS) of Focus on the Global South – Philippines Program co-sponsored on July 31, 2011 a roundtable discussion that tackled the importance, prospects and possibilities of Industrial Policy in the Philippines. The roundtable, which was part of the continuing efforts of DRTS-Focus to push for the crafting of an industrial policy in the Philippines, was jointly sponsored by Action for Economic Reforms (AER), EU-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA) Campaign Network and Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM). The main speaker was Dr. Manuel “Butch” Montes, Chief of Policy Analysis and Development Branch at Financing for Development Office of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). Atty. Nepomuceno Malaluan of Action for Economic Reforms (AER) and the Development Roundtable Series (DRTS) Thematic Working Group on Trade, Industrial Policy and Privatization also presented the results of his study on Philippine trade.

Context

Through successive tariff reform programs, the Philippines pursued a trade policy anchored on unilateral and deepening liberalization across all products.

In 1981, as part of the country’s structural adjustment program, the country commenced a tariff reform program that called for the narrowing of the tariff band from its 10% to 100% to a 10% to 50% range.  This brought down average nominal tariff rate from 42% in 1980 to about 20% by 1985.

The next comprehensive tariff reduction came in 1991. It involved phased adjustment from 1991-995 towards final rates clustered around 3%, 10%, 20% and 30% covering 95% of all tariff lines. This brought average nominal tariff from 28% down to 20% at the end of the period.

In 1995, the Philippines acceded to the World Trade Organization. Under this agreement, the Philippines bound 63% of the tariff lines to tariff ceilings generally 10 percentage points above the 1995 applied rates. It also committed to replace quantitative restrictions with tariffs.

by Rep. Walden Bello

Magandang umaga sa inyong lahat.  Nagpapasalamat kami sa Focus sa inyong pagdating sa forum na ito.  I would like to welcome you as a senior analyst of Focus on the Global South.  I would like to use another hat, however, while giving my speech, and this is that of Akbayan representative in the 15th Congress.
Unang una, ho, gusto kong ipahiwatig sa inyo na hindi ko naiisip na darating ang panahon na kasama ko sa Kongreso si Imelda Marcos.  Naauubos ang panahon ko sa katatakas sa kanya sa plenaryo kasi lagi niya akong sinsubukan sumama sa Komite niya.  She is the head of the House Committee on the Millennium Development Goals, a post to which the Speaker of the House, in what I can only interpret as an ironic mood, appointed her.  It is an experience to hear her speak.  She comes across, as my friends John Cavanagh and Robin Broad described it, as a “brilliant crackpot.”

More than a hundred participants from various people’s and civil society organizations attended the one-day forum “The Development Challenge Under P-Noy: Tackling the Hard Questions,” which Focus on the Global South-Philippines organized through its Development Roundtable Series (DRTS) at the convention hall of the Bureau of Soil and Water Management on July 18, a week before
President Noynoy Aquino delivers his second State of the Nation Address (SONA).

The forum would be one of the culminating activities in 2011 of the seven-year DRTS program, a dialogue-consultation process which had organized national and regional CSOs, basic sector and people’s organizations under several thematic working groups (TWGs) beginning in 2004 to address various issues, and conduct RTDs, research and campaigns aimed at formulating policy alternatives.  On July 18, the TWGs presented to the public several of these issues and policy recommendations they have been working on in the areas of trade liberalization, industrial policies, privatization, water and access to the commons, agrarian reform and similar social justice issues, foreign policy, as well as critical issues the Visayas and Mindanao regions are engaged in.  The thematic working groups are: Trade, Industrial Policy and Privatization; Agrarian Reform and Rural Development;  Water Resources and Services; Peace, Security and Foreign Policy; Development issues in Visayas; Development issues in Mindanao.  Information about the event was tweeted live. (For the presentations, please see the July edition of Focus on Philippines e-newsletter which will be up soon)