Press Release
June 23, 2008

INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES URGED TO LIBERALIZE ENTRY OF WORKERS FROM DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) has urged industrialized or developed countries to liberalize the entry of workers from the developing countries to level the playing field and make up for the imbalance in the flow of goods that heavily favors the former as a consequence of free trade.

Pimentel said free trade, which is being promoted by the World Trade Organization (WTO), enables developed countries to flood the markets of the developing countries with their goods. While theoretically developing countries have reciprocal trading right, he said they actually do not have the capacity to produce and export as much goods as they want to even up trade between them and the developed world.

The veteran parliamentarian asserted that if there is one thing that could make free trade between the developing and developed countries more acceptable, it is the free entry or mobility of the teeming masses of workers of the developing world into the production markets of the developed world.

"This is not a one-sided deal. It will enable our workers to earn more money to send back home so that their families can buy the goods that the developed world produce," Pimentel said at the recent Asian-Europe Parliamentarians Partnership (ASEP) conference in Beijing, China.

He said import liberalization in compliance with WTO rules has displaced vulnerable industries in the Philippines, resulting in company shutdowns or closures, production cutbacks and mass retrenchment of the workforce.

For instance, he said the country's textile industry has suffered badly from overwhelming competition from foreign counterparts while the tire industry is about to enter the ICU (intensive care unit) for the same reason.

Due to scarcity of jobs, about 3,000 Filipino workers get out of the country everyday to seek employment.

Pimentel said workers of the developed countries would naturally resist any move to lift restrictions on the entry of foreign workers because they fear that this could jeopardize their own jobs.

While acknowledging that this is a valid concern, he said this can be addressed by classifying workers from the developing countries and calibrating their entry so that the workers of the developed countries will not be unduly eased out of work.

"After all, most the developed countries of the world are experiencing a decline of their workforces due to their low birth rates. They need replacements for their workforce to keep their production capacities competitive. And we need work for our mass of jobless workers," Pimentel said.

He also stressed that providing jobs for the workers of the developing countries will alleviate poverty which, in turn, will ease social discontent and reduce, if not eliminate, the threat of terrorism.

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