The Apec summit and us
IT'S a P9.8 billion two-day event, hosting 20 presidents or prime ministers from Asia and Pacific countries, including the US and Australia where many of our OFWs are based and from China and Japan whose goods flood our country.
It’s the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Summit, set for Nov. 18 and 19 in Manila. It would discuss things that matter to our economy. It determines our (the people’s) future, yet we were not invited.
Not the Mindanao lumads, or the 700 lumad leaders and students who are on their Manilakbayan ng Mindanao protest and who are set to be forced out from their campout at the Liwasang Bonifacio.
The government of President Noynoy Aquino sees protesting lumads and other activists as eyesores for the event. So are the urban poor settlers whose shanties are covered with huge walls reminiscent of former First Lady Imelda Marcos’s penchant for putting up walls during the Miss Universe event in 1974.
The lumads have much at stake here in the Apec summit, as their ancestral lands have been part of the “global economy” not of their liking. Note that around 500,000 hectares of land are already occupied by agribusiness plantations and million hectares more are eyed for palm oil and pineapple.
Apec member-countries receive 85 percent of our exports including agribusiness.
The Apec summit’s theme is “Building Inclusive Economies, Building a Better World.” But it’s an irony that the lumads, or the 80 percent of Filipinos living below the poverty line are not involved in it. They do not have a voice in the group that handles the Apec, the Apec Business Advisory Council. The council is composed of CEOs from Ayala Corp., Jollibee and Magsaysay Transport.
Aquino proposed four issues to be tackled in the summit: regional economic integration, helping small and medium enterprises in the regional and global trade, investing in human capital development, and building sustainable and resilient communities. Each one presents a problem for the average Juan and Maria.
While SMEs such as ours need support, the reality of taxes, bureaucracy and corruption in our country are discouraging to entrepreneurs.
The human capital development has led to the overhauling of our education system into the K to 12 program to fit the 12-year basic education system of other Apec countries.
But this has led to questions on the readiness of the curriculum and infrastructure and to the claim by youth activists that the K-12 system only leads high school and college students to join the global demand for vocational, technical, BPO-heavy and cheap labor.
What kind of sustainable and resilient communities is Aquino talking about, when lumad communities are being torn apart by military and paramilitary raids, and self-reliant lumad schools are vilified and forced to close down by the military and some DepEd officials?
And what about the communities affected by super typhoons such as Tacloban and Baganga and war-torn Zamboanga where we barely see government rehab projects being completed.
Some 70 percent of investments come from Apec, with the United States taking the dominant role in this region. Apec is a troubled journey for 90 million Filipinos.
Meanwhile, if the lumads get dispersed, they will continue to march on in protest, with more supporters from the likes of Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, conscientious artists like Bayang Barrios and Aiza Seguerra, religious groups and environmentalists.
That’s the state of our nation. As Aquino waltzes with giants, the poor and the lumads are trekking like ants to find a better place away from the madness.-- From Sun.Star Davao