"Philippine Daily Inquirer"
By Bernardo V. Lopez
THE CURRENT chicken war demonstrates how a giant like the United States can easily bully a small Third World nation like the Philippines. The US Agriculture Department is accusing the Philippines of violating World Trade Organization rules by disallowing the import of US chicken. In fact, it is the United States, which is guilty of dumping chicken here, a violation of the WTO rules.
Dumping is defined as the sale at cut-throat prices of excess commodities, which is precisely what is happening in the chicken war. US chicken, whose price at one time was as low as P60 per kilo at the shelves, is priced way below production cost. These are excess produce of the US market that is being dumped here and is killing our local chicken which is priced at about P91 per kilo, already down from P120 before US chicken flooded the market.
On top of dumping is smuggling. Lucio Lao Co, reportedly a friend of President Estrada, has been accused of using his duty-free shops as a front to smuggle chicken, a charge he has denied. Did chicken smuggling begin when Agriculture Secretary Edgardo Angara began limiting but not stopping the import of US chicken?
Angara limited the import of US chicken precisely to comply and not violate WTO rules, which sets a Minimum Access Volume (MAV) to curtail dumping. According to the MAV, only 19,000 metric tons can be imported to safeguard the local chicken industry. US Agriculture officials accused the Philippines of WTO violations when it was precisely complying with its rules on MAV to stop dumping.
The US complaint is indeed timely. They did it when Estrada is set to visit the United States, hoping it would embarrass him into agreeing to their demands. Erap, in fact, has become defensive, saying the chicken issue will not be on the agenda of his US visit. They have succeeded in their psych-war on Erap.
Erap should stand up to the Americans to defend Filipino enterprise. As it is, he fears a backlash from the Americans because he may not understand the reality of the chicken war: that it is the United States which is violating the WTO rules, not us. The chicken issue may also derail his other objectives for the US visit, which may include arms for the Mindanao war to satisfy the hawk in him.
US multinationals have a stake in Mindanao and can easily give excess arms to Erap. But if Erap gets his bullets, it is tantamount to escalating the Mindanao war and the same US multinationals will be in the losing end. That is the irony of it all. War will not safeguard the multinationals but endanger them. Bread, not bullets, is the key to peace in Mindanao. Addressing the poverty of Muslim farmers is the long-term solution to insurgency and Moro separatism.
The United States is guilty of having a double standard, refusing to listen to the pleas of Filipino coconut farmers accusing big players in the lucrative oils and fats industry in the United States of also disallowing the import of coconut oil. They want to sell us chicken but they don't want to buy our coconut oil.
The enrichment of a dominant economy like the United States must be based on a win-win formula where lesser economies will also gain, not die, in the process. The new global order requires this win-win principle, without which there will be wars and regional instability. Equity is the basic principle of world order, the lessening of gaps between rich and poor.
The fact that many people protested against the WTO in its Seattle meeting reflects this obvious pro-multinational bias, the growth of big players and the demise of small ones. After Seattle, the WTO began to realize from its unpopularity that there are forces that can oppose it, not on the negotiating table but on the streets. As protesters articulated, the rule by multinationals of the global economy will see the death of small people, small enterprises and small nations.
The problem lies in the alliance of multinationals with the US government. The fact that the US Department of Agriculture is acting against Angara reflects the unseen hand of the chicken multinationals, which want to dump its excess production on weak ''insignificant'' countries like the Philippines.
In the same way, Erap should align himself with the local chicken industry by bringing to the negotiating table in Washington this gross economic crime of ''chicken dumping.'' That way, we can eat more ''chicken dumpling'' in peace. His silence in Washington will be tantamount to conceding defeat against the greedy chicken multinationals. It would be a grave sin of omission against the Filipino people, more precisely the 330,000 workers or a third of a million in the local chicken industry who are affected. The fully automated US chicken multinationals will benefit a handful of investors and workers, not even a tenth of the 330,000.
The next step is, when our $360-million-per-annum local chicken industry dies, the US multinationals will arrive, set up shop and take over. Is this the ''fair play'' that the WTO advocates? Is this ''trade liberalization'' or is it ''trade monopolization''? If the WTO fights against protectionism by weak economies, it must also give equal effort to fighting dumping by dominant economies.
The WTO claims there are ''safety nets'' against dumping but they are ineffective. Dumping of US chicken, Taiwanese garlic and Brazilian sugar, which have impoverished thousands of Filipino farmers, including about 50,000 sugar workers in 1998, have not been curtailed. In truth, the WTO is biased against weaker economies. Dumping is a greater evil than protectionism. Protectionism is equitable because it protects smaller economies. Dumping is not because it enriches big mass producers at the expense of smaller ones.:
