The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) today assailed the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) for keeping secret the Philippine government’s negotiating position in the 5th Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Cancun, Mexico next month, saying, “the government’s position in Cancun is imbued with national interest and public trust.”

The government said it could not reveal the positions saying, “It would be detrimental to the country's chances of getting favorable trade deals.” 

But the KMP said that the WTO Cancun Round introduces “new issues” for liberalization namely; agriculture, investments and services. “This three major areas are highly significant for capitalist countries to be able to control the whole economy.”

KMP chair Rafael Mariano said, “the importance of the WTO-Cancun Round is like the Uruguay Round in 1994 that warrants a national public debate.” 
He said that “with the Cancun Meeting only weeks away, Trade and Industry Secretary Mar Roxas now buries his head in the sand and, in brazen display of his sterile imagination, has refused to disclose to the public what offers and terms they would submit and what are the talking points the DTI will bring in Cancun.”
“The DTI’s attitude of keeping the Filipino people blind on its position in Cancun plays into the undemocratic character of the WTO,” Mariano said.
“We demand both houses of Congress to summon Roxas, immediately intervene and conduct investigations on this matter. Investigations should also include the assessment of the impacts of trade liberalization in the country,” says Mariano.
“After nine years of WTO membership, Filipino farmers have weighed the WTO and its regime of so-called “free market” and found them disastrous to Philippine agriculture and to small independent producers,” the peasant leader chided.
The KMP feared that the DTI would further push for the full integration of the agriculture sector in international trade liberalization.
The WTO-Agreement on Agriculture outlines the modalities for the further liberalization of agriculture and further reduction of tariffs in agricultural trade. 
“The Cancun round will only be used to force through new rules and schedules that will further liberalize international trade to the greater disadvantage of Third World economies and worsen the harsh effects of unbridled liberalization of international trade on small producers and farmers,” Mariano stressed.
The KMP is calling for a halt on the importation of highly sensitive agricultural products that already suffered from the policy of liberalization and is demanding the government to get out of the WTO.

The Bureau of International Trade Relations (BITR), an attached agency of the DTI, stressed that revealing the country's negotiating positions to the public and to the media would compromise the country's stance.  #

KMP - 19 August 2003