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The “biggest challenge” to finally accomplishing agrarian reform, more than 20 years after the Philippine Constitution articulated that it shall be the main means to realize social justice in the countryside, is “distributing 1.5 million hectares…to 1.1 million beneficiaries” with barely three years left to the current administration to implement the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER).  This is the central message of the study recently released by the non-government, international think tank Focus on the Global South.  Through a roundtable discussion, the study was presented to key government officials and civil society advocates of agrarian reform, September 9, 2011.

Launch of Focus on the Global South-Philippines’ Policy Review issue on CARPER
September 9, 2011, 9:00-12:30pm
Seminar Room A&B, Balay Kalinaw, UP Diliman

5 or 3; 1.5; 1.1; 24; 54.2, 51.2 and 47.0; 4; 9.3

Why do these numbers and more related statistics matter?  Why should government keep in mind these numbers?  Why do farmers look at these numbers and see a future or the lack of it?

Here’s why:
35 is the number of months left to the government to accomplish the land acquisition and distribution component of CARPER

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.