Senate must keep its word on RCEP

The Senate must continue being a much-valued ally of agriculture. We believe it will keep its word by helping implement conditionalities in the ratification of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

In the ratification document approved last Feb. 21, 2023, the Senate identified six conditions proposed by the Agri-Fisheries Alliance (composed of Alyansa Agrikultura for farmers and fisherfolk, Philippine Chamber of Agriculture and Food, Inc. for agribusiness, and Coalition for Agriculture Modernization in the Philippines). These were also unanimously supported by the Philippine Council of Agriculture and Fisheries’ international trade committee.

The Senate favorably responded to a letter petition signed by 131 organizations, which identified serious dangers of RCEP’s impact on agriculture if certain preparations were not acted upon.

READ: A call to senators on RCEP implementation

The Senate stated in the RCEP document: “For the effective implementation of the RCEP agreement, the Senate of the Philippines deems it necessary for the following conditions to be adopted and implemented … ” And if these are not done, the document added: (1) “The Senate of the Philippines may recommend to the President the withdrawal of the Agreement,” and (2) “The President of the Philippines may, with the concurrence of the Senate, withdraw from the Agreement.”

With Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr.’s support, six conditions have been partially met.

More can be done on two of these six, however. They both involve private sector participation in governance (which was abolished previously despite its proven success).

Antismuggling

One condition is the restoration of a public-private sector antismuggling committee. This committee helped reduce smuggling by 27 percent the first time it was implemented, and 31 percent the second time around.

A quantitative smuggling indicator is provided by the United Nations Comtrade—the amount  an exporting country sends to the Philippines is compared to the amount the Bureau of Customs (BOC) reports it receives. The difference is the smuggling indicator.

Using the numbers, a year after the committee was abolished, smuggling increased by 104 percent.

Smuggling only became worse year after year. In 2019, it amounted to P500 billion, eventually increasing to P1.2 trillion in 2021.

Last Sept. 26, the prerequisite mentioned above was partially addressed by the enactment of the Anti-Agricultural  Economic Sabotage Act. However, it lacks the characteristics of  the previous successful committee.

We recommend that there should be a public-private committee meeting monthly with the BOC for close monitoring and improvement. It should also report directly to the President.

Budget monitoring

The second condition is the restoration of the public-private committee monitoring of the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) budget.

This has been partially complied with. The regional and provincial private sector-led Agriculture and Fisheries Councils are now given the complete list of DA-funded projects.

However, their budget covers only 10 percent of the projects being monitored.

Do take note that the Commission on Audit (COA) had reported that as much as one-third of the DA’s expenses were not liquidated or explained for the years 2020, 2021 and 2022. This is due, in part, to lack of private sector monitoring of the budget use.

In another report covering the years 2020 to 2022, it was revealed that 30 percent of machines the government gave to farmers were either unutilized or underutilized. In a monitoring team I joined covering six provinces in Eastern Visayas last July 15 to 19, the same 30-percent rate was discovered due to inadequate private sector monitoring.

The Agri-Fisheries Alliance had already asked the Senate agriculture committee for a much higher budget than the measly P4.8 million currently earmarked for private sector monitoring.

The very high return on investment in reducing significant waste and corruption surely justifies this. It also complies with the RCEP monitoring prerequisite.

As of Oct. 28, there has been no favorable response vis-a-vis this condition.

It is now up to the Senate to increase this monitoring budget when it meets on Nov. 18.

The Senate should continue its support for agriculture and also keep its word on the proper implementation of the RCEP. With the Senate as a valuable ally, our agriculture can achieve rapid development. INQ