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Opinion
WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2017
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EDITORIAL
Adelle Chua, Editor
Reason for concern
T
RADE Secretary Ramon Lopez is rightfully concerned that the fallout from President Rodrigo Duterte’s abrupt rejection of some 250 million euros in development aid from the European Union could hurt the substantial trade advantages that the country enjoys under the bloc’s generalized scheme of preferences.
Since December 2014, Filipino exporters have been able to sell their goods to the European bloc duty-free under the EU’s GSP+ program, a crucial advantage in terms of market access covering over 6,000 product categories. But now the arrangement is under review, and Mr. Duterte’s show of independence could affect how EU officials assess our fitness to continue under their trade program. The EU guidelines are clear. The full removal of tariffs under GSP+ will be granted only to countries that “ratify and implement core international conven-
tions on human and labor rights, environmental protection and good governance.” Will President Duterte again see these conditions as foreign interference in domestic affairs and spurn our participation in GSP+? Or will the EU find that the Philippines under the Duterte administration is no longer compliant with the core international conventions on human and labor rights? Either possibility is a recipe for disaster for Philippine exporters. The latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed export receipts
from EU buyers totaled $2.401 billion in the first quarter of 2017, up 48.3 percent from $1.619 billion from the same period last year. This made the EU the second largest market for Philippine products among other economic blocs. All this could be imperiled if our GSP+ privileges are revoked in the ongoing review. Secretary Lopez argues that economic matters be insulated from noneconomic issues such as human rights and opposition to the reinstatement of the death penalty in the Philippines. He also says that unlike grants, the GSP+ benefits both sides. “It’s not a grant. And they’re commercial transactions that can mutually benefit both sides,” Lopez told one network news service. “The EU should continue to engage the country. GSP provides market access
to our exporters, but it allows cheaper Philippine products for EU consumers or cheaper inputs for their manufacturers,” he said, painting the country’s participation in GSP+ as “a mutually beneficial arrangement.” Unfortunately, what Secretary Lopez says will not change EU policies, which are reflected in its guidelines. And those guidelines say that to qualify for GSP+ privileges, we must comply with international conventions on human and labor rights, environmental protection and good governance. Whether this constitutes interference is beside the point. It is, after all, an EU program and they can administer it as they see fit. The President would be well within his rights to withdraw our application for GSP+ privileges, but that would be a clear case of cutting off the nose to spite the face. VIRTUAL REALITY TONY LOPEZ
The useless Anti-Distracted Driving Act
The real ‘palit-ulo’ LOWDOWN
JOJO A. ROBLES RIGHT under everyone’s noses, Digong is pulling off his biggest, most outrageous “ ” scheme. But it doesn’t involve killing anyone—the exchange is all about shifting emphasis from traditional diplomatic partners and cultivating new ones regularly eyed with suspicion by the old. The peripatetic President Rodrigo Duterte, in his latest sojourn, has gone to meet his avowed “favorite idol,” the infamous Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation. The trip to Russia marks the completion of Duterte’s own version of a diplomatic pivot from usual economic, military and cultural partners the United States and Europe, to China and Russia. If the US and the European Union considered Duterte’s
previous diatribes against them to be mere populist hot air, his visits to Beijing and Moscow must be making them stop and rethink their position. Duterte is now openly talking about sending bananas to Russia in exchange for smart bombs for the Philippines; we’re way beyond Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos’ cultural exchanges in ballet and classical music with the old Soviet Union in the seventies here. Of course, the official Palace line has always been that Duterte is not replacing his country’s old allies with new ones. He is merely befriending others with whom relations have not really bloomed in the past, given the gravitational pull that Washington has always exerted on America’s “little brown brothers” in Manila. But Duterte’s travels seem to proclaim otherwise. He has visited Beijing twice before going to Moscow; even after talking to Donald Trump
on the telephone a couple of times, he is in no hurry to make the traditional Filipino leader’s pilgrimage to Washington. Nearly a year into Duterte’s term, he has not appointed an ambassador to Washington.
no end if Duterte doesn’t realize that while presidents like Trump come and go, US diplomatic policy changes only at a glacial pace.) A visit to Europe in the coming days has about the same chances of happening, given the Duterte government’s recent rejection of “conditional” EU aid to Manila, as a trip to the moon. Really. Of course, everyone knows I hope how Putin and his country are Duterte’s biggest at the center of the continuing controversy that is rocking the gamble to assert Trump administration to its his country’s luxury-condo foundations. That Duterte is now consorting with independence on the man accused of everything from rigging the US elections the world stage to receiving secret intelligence succeeds. information intended only for Trump must not be playing well over at State. I understand perfectly that Duterte’s pivot to China and (This is something that must Russia is necessary, especially make the Philippine experts in after the six years of slavish, unthe State Department wonder abashedly neocolonial “Ameri-
ca First” policy of his predecessor. Duterte served notice that it is no longer diplomatic business as usual, first by shunning a trip to the US and opting to do the rounds of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (most of whose leaders have expressed their admiration for their firebrand and fiercely independent Philippine counterpart) and then by successfully hosting the Asean summit in Manila. And now Duterte has gone to Moscow upon the invitation of Putin, whom he met at the Apec meeting in Peru. The pivot—or the “palitulo,” if you want—is complete. *** I find myself cheering Duterte on as he expands the Philippines’ reach and drums up interest in our country as a haven for trade and investment, tourism and all sorts of bilateral interaction. That Duterte is making the usual First SalesTurn to A5
THE Anti-Distracted Driving Act (Republic Act 10913) is one of those laws that should be thrown into the dustbin of useless laws. The law is supposed to minimize injuries, deaths and accidents due to unrestrained use of electronic mobile devices while driving a car, a truck, a bicycle, a motorbike, a tricycle, a pedicab, a kuliglig, a caretela and a kariton. Are there statistics on how many accidents are caused daily by distracted driving because of one’s use of cellphones while driving? I am sure such stats are no higher than the toll from tokhang and extrajudicial killings perpetrated by the police and vigilantes. The numbers being bandied about are between 4,000 and 9,000 deaths. And yet, President Duterte says any policeman charged for killing a person while conducting a tokhang or an illegal drugs operations will be protected by him and rewarded with cash, a gun or a promotion. If convicted, said cop will be pardoned. If the policeman is killed in action, Duterte will pay him a visit at his wake. The six-page (on short bond paper) RA 10913 became law because of the laziness of one president, BS Aquino III, who never bothered to sign the bill. Because he did not sign it, it lapsed into law, per provision of—you better believe it, the Constitution. Our Senate and our House of Representatives do not need to feel guilty and justify their presence in our midst or their lack of production by producing instead vexatious and useless laws. Our people understand even if it costs taxpayers P8.65 billion a year to pay for the salaries of people in the House and P3.97 billion a year to do the same in the Senate. In fact, it would be better perhaps if the entire Congress stopped enacting laws. The Philippines already has more than 15,000 laws. These are more laws than people need. More than half of the laws are useless anyway. The 15,000 are enforced or interpreted by more than 35,000 lawyers this country has. Twothirds of our lawyers either do not practice law or violate the law themselves. RA 10913 just gives government agencies like the Land Transportation Office (LTO), Turn to A5
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