In the Philippines, every city has its McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s or 7-11 franchise. American top-40 lords it over the airwaves, and the TV audience gets its regular dose of Ally McBeal, the X-Files and Oprah. American action star Arnold Schwarzeneger is as popular as a famous Filipino actor, Joseph Estrada, who also happens to be our president.
In the Philippines, American capital dominates the economy. In many parts of the country, toothpaste is commonly called “Colgate,” refrigirators “Frigidaire,” and pictures “Kodak.” Of late, thanks to trade liberalization, our people have been feasting on Washington apples and California grapes since these sell cheaper than locally-grown friuts.
And yes, we speak good English, sometimes even with an American accent.
But the Philippines is NOT America. It is a neocolony of the United States of America. It’s where American capitalists dump their suplus products and capital in order to make a killing. It’s also a place where American, Japanese, German or any other First World capitalist can hire cheap labor and buy cheap raw and semi-processed materials.
Like many other neocolonial countries, the future of the Philippines as a nation is being sold down the drain at the World Trade Organization (WTO) this week. As the WTO launches its “Millennium Round” of negotiations for the further liberalization of the world economy, we in the Philippines can only cringe at the though of our future under globalization.
Five years ago, the fantastic promises of globalization were first made to us and the rest of the world. They said that the Philippine’s entry to the WTO would create 500,000 new jobs a year in agriculture, 587,000 new jobs a year in industry, and an additional annual gross value added of 60 billion pesos (US$1.5B). They said that developing countries like us would reap the benefits of greater market access, bigger volume of trade, higher technology and limitless amounts of foreign investments.
We should’ve known better than believe in this imperialist-imposed global paradise.
Instead, the period 1994-1998 saw the fall of our local industries like tobacco, textile, apparel, wood and wood furnishings, furniture and fixtures, chemicals, rubber, non-metallic products, basic metal and mining. Things got worse during the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. Last year alone, 250 workplaces closed down and 155,198 jobs were lost. At least 755,684 Filipinos had to find work abroad, bringing to at least 6 million the number of Filipino migrant workers.
Philippine agriculture suffered the most from globalization. Total agricultural imports surged from $42.24 million in 1994 to $789.21 million in 1996, tapering off to $669.89 million in 1998. From a relatively self-sufficient agricultural economy, the Philippines was transformed into a net agricultural importer.
The effect has been harshest on our workers and peasants, who suffered massive dislocation and loss of incomes. As farmgate prices fell and production costs rose, peasants were forced to abandon their farms and join the ever-increasing army of unemployed workers. Those fortunate enough to find jobs, mostly on a contractual or part-time basis, saw their wages continually plunging. The minimum daily wage of P223.5 (US$5.6) in the country’s premier city is around half of the required daily cost of living worth P441 (US$11).
Today, the local economy is shot, totally dependent on foreign loans (totalling $56.89B), remittances from Filipino overseas contract workers ($5-$7B a year) and speculative investments (reaching as high as 80% of all foreign investments).
For us in the Philippines, globalization has only aggravated the worst features of monopoly capitalism: unrestrained profit-taking, sinking wage levels, unemployment, loss of livelihoods, breakdowns in production, neglect of social services and the devastation of the environment. And now the WTO wants to push for more of globalization’s destructive policies.
The “globalists” try to argue that globalization is the only path to development. Yet after having “globalized” for four centuries, the problems of capitalism remain intractable. Misery and exploitation are as widespread as ever. The soaring achievements of capitalism that are so loudly proclaimed have only benefited a few. We know. We’re from the Philippines.
Today we bring our struggles here to Seattle, to the very shores of the empire. We have come here to heighten the worldwide resistance against imperialist globalization. Our very act of struggle shows that there is an alternative to capitalism’s global destruction. In both the imperialist and neocolonial countries, in both America and the Philippines, there is the people’s struggle for genuine democracy, national liberation and socialism.
We have come here to say NO to the WTO! No to imperialist globalization!