JPEPA bad for Filipinos, says Japanese pastor

By Germelina Lacorte
Mindanao Bureau, Inquirer.net
Posted date: January 29, 2008

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – “Kitani, kitanai and kiken (hard, dirty and dangerous).”
This was how Rev. Isamo Koshiishi, a member of the National Christian Churches of Japan (NCCJ), described the kinds of jobs offered by Japan to Filipino workers in exchange for major fishing rights and trade concessions under the Japan-Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).

He said that there was no reason for Filipinos to be happy about the job prospects offered by JPEPA, describing it as a “kind of slavery.”

Koshiishi is one of 10 Japanese pastors who attended a five-day bilateral conference with the activist National Council of Churches of the Philippines (NCCP) here, and who are lending their voices to the church-led campaign to stop the Senate from ratifying the JPEPA.

Facing the press at the end of the conference, Koshiishi and Fr. John Yuji Kanzaki, chair of the NCCJ Philippine committee, said they were worried that JPEPA -- already ratified by the Japanese parliament -- “might take away what little is left for small fisherfolk and farmers to live on.”

After a visit to banana plantations in Compostela Valley province and tuna packing plants and fishing villages in General Santos City and Sarangani, the Japanese pastors said they agreed with their Philippine colleagues that JPEPA was one-sided.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has urged the Senate to ratify the trade pact, which she said will facilitate and promote the free flow of goods, persons, services and capital between the Philippines and Japan by reducing or eliminating tariffs on almost all industrial goods. A provision which would allow Filipino nurses and caregivers to work in Japan was another benefit trumpeted by government negotiators.

Anti- JPEPA allies

“The jobs of caretakers and nurses are known in Japan as the three K’s,” Koshiishi said, referring to the above description. “Those are jobs that most people hate. Those are jobs most people do not want to do because they are very hard and they pay very low.”

On the other hand, the Japanese pastor said allowing Japanese big business to enter Philippine fishing and packing, for instance, may wipe out the livelihood of small Filipino fishermen.

For instance, in General Santos City, fishermen may still be using “hardliners,” a primitive way of fishing, but which still is a “sufficient way for them to survive,” Koshiishi said. “Once the Japanese vessels start coming in with their very big nets, the [Filipino] fishermen may no longer be able to lay their hands on the fish, they will have to buy the fish in cans.”

“It’s a kind of joke but it’s not a joke,” he said. “It’s a very serious story. I don’t know exactly what will happen after the agreement comes but I know the story of other countries in the South Pacific.”