This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 44, December
11-17, 2005
P1 Trillion in Revenues Lost
Due to WTO Accord An
anti-globalization alliance says the government’s fiscal crisis is all the more
exacerbated because the government radically reworked the 1994 tariff rates on
imported commodities, leading to a loss of P1 trillion in revenues.
BY
BULATLAT RESIST, the Philippine
network of people’s organizations and sectoral groups opposed to the World Trade
Organization (WTO) today said that the government’s fiscal crisis is all the
more exacerbated because the government radically reworked the 1994 tariff rates
on imported commodities. “Because of the country’s
unilateral tariff reduction scheme, the government has lost potential additional
revenues of P237.82 billion in 2003 alone. This was computed on the assumption
that tariff collections could have reached P332.38 billion in 2003, if tariff
rates were retained at the 1994 level of 19.72 percent,” he said. Casino said that the
Philippine government should at least resist attempts by rich nations to effect
huge cuts in tariff rates of WTO members through the so-called Swiss formula in
the upcoming ministerial meeting in Hong Kong later this month. “If the
Philippine government still has any pretenses of caring for the welfare of the
Filipino people,’ he said. © 2005 Bulatlat
■
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Citing data from the Department of Trade Industry (DTI), Resist spokesperson and
Bayan Muna Representative Teddy Casino, the local industries have been severely
compromised because of the Macapagal-Arroyo government’s accelerated tariff
reduction program which is patterned after the specifications of the WTO. This
tariff reduction program has caused the national coffers a loss of some P1.079
trillion from 1995 to 2003.
Philippine Ambassador to the World Trade Organization Manuel Antonio Teehankee
himself has conceded that the Philippines imposes one of the lowest tariff rates
on imports.
The country’s average applied tariffs as of 2005 are estimated at eight percent
for agriculture products and 4.3 percent for industrial products, he said.
In comparison, Thailand’s applied tariff rates are 29 percent for agricultural
products and 14.2 percent for industrial products. China and India also have
higher tariff rates than those of the Philippines.
Casino said that the Philippine government’s already callous lack of support for
local industries coupled with the doing away of tariffs and the levels of
protection for locally produced products has cause many local industries to
close shop.
Because the government lowered its average most favored nation (MFN) tariff rate
to an average of 5.61 percent in 2003, the Bureau of Customs was able to collect
only P94.56 billion.
“Yet here is the government continuing to harass the Filipino people with new
taxes such as the expanded value added tax (EVAT) and exhorting them to further
tighten their belts! The government is losing billions because of the WTO’s
policies.
“But more than this, the Philippines should completely get out of the WTO,” he
said. “The Macapagal-Arroyo government cannot shake itself off of the
responsibility for the destruction of the national economy and the worsening
poverty of the Filipino people. The last two-and-a-half decades under this
neo-liberal development framework and the last 10 years under the WTO has made
genuine progress and development for Philippine industries and agriculture an
impossibility,” he said. Bulatlat