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JAPAN’S free-trade agreement with the Philippines in its present
form will not likely be ratified, Senate President Manuel Villar
said Tuesday.
The Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership
Agreement (JPEPA), signed in September 2006, would remove import
tariffs on more than 90 percent of goods traded between the two
Asian countries, and will open the largely closed Japanese labor
market to Filipino health workers.
President Gloria Arroyo has described the
agreement as one of the economic priorities of her government.
“Personally I’m not impressed with the so-called economic
benefits,” Villar told the Foreign Correspondents Association at a
forum.
Nevertheless, Villar said he is still keeping an
open mind on the matter. “I’m still waiting for them [Philippine
economic officials] to convince me.” He said environmentalist
groups, who are campaigning against the treaty allegedly because it
would allow Tokyo to dump hazardous wastes in the Philippines
disguised as exports, “are better at presenting their case.”
In a related development, a group of Japanese
doctors is eyeing the province of Cebu as a site for a retirement
facility that will cater to the needs of the growing elderly
population in their country.
As talks for its realization developed, the Cebu
Doctors Hospital Group (Cebudocgroup) strongly called on the
Senate to ratify the JPEPA, to strengthen bilateral ties and
partnership with Japan.
Oscar Tuason, administrator of the Cebudocgroup
and concurrent vice-president for administration of the Cebu
Doctors’ University Hospital revealed that Cebudocgroup is
currently holding talks with its Japanese counterparts, Juzenzei,
one of the biggest hospitals in Japan, and Aoikai, a retirement home
operator, for the setting up of a facility for elders in the
Philippine province.
--With AFP
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