NEPA Rebuffs Gov. Salceda
The National Economic Protectionism Association (NEPA) believes that Gov. Joey Salceda’s call for a boycott of China products is hypocritical as well as useless.
Salceda was a senior economic adviser in the previous administration when the country opened up the market to China and started its entry over the local market to the detriment of local producers. Needless to say, Salceda is indirectly responsible to the domination of Chinese consumer products over the local market that Salceda is complaining about.
Salceda’s particularly insiduous role in the current situation was to provide the “safety nets” as embodied by laws he authored such as the Republic Act No. 8751 or the Countervailing Duty Act, Republic Act No. 8752 or the Anti-Dumping Duty Act, and Republic Act No. 8800 or the Safeguard Measures Act. These measures were presented as safeguards in the expected deluge of foreign products that goes with the country’s entry in the World Trade Organization and in the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT).
Now, after almost a decade of open markets and a disintegrating local manufacturing sector, Gov. Salceda’s call is most certainly hollow. His safety nets turned out to be, well, full of holes.
Salceda’s call of a boycott, however, sharply brought into focus the stark reality of the country’s vulnerabilities not just in the Kalayaan Islands conflict but more importantly our economic vulnerabilities.
The Kalayaan conflict is engendered by economics. Unfortunately, the country’s effort especially during GMA’s term to assert its rights over the islands and explore its natural resources is not exactly patriotic in intent and manner. It must be noted that China’s recent aggressive moves came in the heels of the exploration projects by US and European oil interests done under the cover of the Philippine flag.
As such, the Philippines is being made an unwitting tool, a proxy in the fight of global powers to oil.
As to the reality that the Chinese had practically dominated the local market, along with the US and Japan, the country is better served by strengthening its manufacturing sector and the domestic market – something that Salceda’s “safety nets” miserably failed in doing.
Boycott of Chinese products will not strengthen our hand in the Kalayaan Islands’ conflict or serve our national economic interests as if the domestic market is under the thumb not just of the Chinese but of American and Japanese interests.
We must take pains to build our economy so that we can stand on stronger footing as a nation. Let us Build Filipino, Buy Filipino!
