NDFP Draft – 26 February  1998

COMPREHENSIVE AGREEMENT ON SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC REFORMS
BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES
AND THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC FRONT OF THE PHILIPPINES

The GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES,
hereinafter referred to as GRP
and
The NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC FRONT OF THE PHILIPPINES
hereinafter referred to as NDFP
Hereinafter referred to as “the Parties”

 

PREAMBLE

            Recognizing  the need for basic social and economic reforms to uphold the national and democratic rights and interests of the broad masses of the people and for a comprehensive agreement along this line as decisive in laying the ground for a just and lasting peace,

            Considering that the persistent subordination to imperialism, the industrial backwardess and agrarian character of the Philippine economy and the consequent grossly iniquitous social and economic relations and massive poverty are the fundamental causes of the prolonged armed conflict,

            Acknowledging  that the aforementioned national and social problems are engendered and perpetuated by the drive of the foreign monopoly corporations and banks, multilateral agencies and the dominant foreign economic powers led by the United States, and their domestic allies — the big comprador or trading bourgeoisie, the big landlords and the big bureaucrat capitalists — to extract the utmost profit from the country and its people,

            Upholding economic sovereignty and independence against foreign monopoly capitalism and aiming to recover, conserve and defend the national patrimony, protect the environment, carry out national industrialization and land reform and thus bring about self-reliant and all-round social and economic development,

            Realizing that the Philippines is endowed with abundant natural resources, a competent labor force, and technologically adept managerial and entrepreneurial forces to make itself  economically self-reliant,

             Affirming social justice and aiming to protect the rights and interests of the people, especially the toiling masses of workers and peasants, women and the ethnic minorities, and including national entrepreneurs,

            Reaffirming  protection and promotion of social, economic and cultural rights to complement civil and political rights guaranteed by  international covenants,

           Cognizant of the need for the basic masses, the workers and peasants, and their organizations, to assume decisive role in the formulation and implementation of national socioeconomic plans and programs and for all patriotic and democratic classes and sectors to contribute to the building of a just and prosperous society,

            Assuming common and separate duties and responsibilities for upholding social, economic and cultural rights and carrying out social and economic reforms under their respective constitutions and under international law,

            Complying  with mutually acceptable principles as well as the common goals in The Hague Joint Declaration of September 1, 1992, the Breukelen Joint Statement of June 14, 1994 and pertinent joint agreements hitherto signed, and

            Fully aware of the need for sound policies and effective mechanisms and measures for upholding, protecting and promoting social, economic and cultural rights and carrying out social and economic reforms,

            SOLEMNLY ENTER without reservation into this Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms.

Part I.

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES

Article 1.  The Parties are governed by the framework of negotiating and agreeing under mutually acceptable principles of national sovereignty, democracy and social justice and with no precondition that negates the character and purpose of peace negotiations, as stipulated in The Hague Joint Declarationand reaffirmed in the Breukelen Joint Statement and subsequent agreements.

Article 2.  The Parties uphold the principles of mutuality, reciprocity and parity in the conduct of the peace negotiations and in the implementation of this Agreement and all other agreements which they may enter into in accordance with The Hague Joint Declaration.

Article 3 .  The Parties recognize that the foundation of the social, political and cultural life of society is its economy.

Article 4.  The Parties are motivated to forge a comprehensive agreement on social and economic reforms by the need to solve the fundamental problems of exploitation, oppression, backwardness and massive poverty and thereby lay the ground for a just and lasting peace.

Article 5.  The Parties affirm the basic task of forging the unity of all patriotic and freedom-loving Filipinos in order to eliminate imperialist dominance, feudal backwardness and comprador-bureaucrat exploitation and oppression which constitute the primary obstacles to the attainment of national liberation and social emancipation.

Article 6. The Parties resolve to reverse the current policy of liberalization, deregulation and privatization that has exacerbated the current socioeconomic crisis and in its stead adopt a patriotic and democratic standpoint in the formulation and implementation of  all socioeconomic plans and programs.

Article 7.  The Parties assert  that in order to harness the full potential of the workers, peasants and other producers and small traders socioeconomic planning must be undertaken in democratic consultations with organs of people’s power from the grassroots level upward.

Article 8.  The Parties affirm and uphold the welfare of the Filipino people, especially the basic toiling masses of workers and peasants and the ethnic minorities as the primary guiding principle in the utilization of the national patrimony to bring about social and economic development.

Article 9.  The Parties agree to undertake forthwith, jointly and separately, an agrarian reform program to dismantle feudal and semifeudal relations by expropriating landlord property as the method breaking land monopoly in the countryside and to distribute the land to the direct and actual tillers for free.

Article 10. The Parties agree to immediately adopt a policy and draw up a program of national industrialization, with heavy industries as the leading factor and agriculture as the base, to create the basic conditions for a comprehensive, well-balanced and nationally self-reliant economic development.

Article 11.  The Parties agree on the expropriation of imperialist, comprador-bourgeois and bureaucrat capital as a crucial factor for self-reliant economic development in order to prevent capital drain from the country and to eliminate foreign monopoly control of the economy.

Article 12.  The Parties recognize the plunderous character of the globalization drive of foreign monopoly capital as demonstrated by recurrent economic crises and shall adopt policies to stop the foreign monopoly banks and firms from further exploiting and plundering our human and other resources.

Article 13. The Parties agree to conduct economic reconstruction and development along the principle of securing the people’s welfare, maintaining ecological balance,  assuring continuous regeneration of renewable natural resources and judiciously using nonrenewable resources.

Article 14.  The Parties affirm, uphold and support the rights and welfare of women, children and youth, the urban and rural poor, migrant workers, national and ethnic minorities, the aged,  the disabled and other exploited, oppressed, disadvantaged and discriminated sectors.

Article 15.  The Parties agree to assume obligations for the full realization of the rights consistent with such generally accepted principles and instruments of international law as the International Labor Convention of 1948 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural  Rights of 1966, International Covenant on the Rights of Migrant Workers and the Members of their Family and other similar or relevant international covenants.

Article 16.  The Parties hereby forge this Agreement in order to assume their constant and continuing commitment to carry out social and economic reforms and to respect and effect  the people’s social, economic and cultural rights.

 

Part II.

BASES, SCOPE AND APPLICABILITY

Article 1.  The provisions of this Agreement address the concrete semicolonial and semifeudal conditions and the fundamental question of national and social liberation through social and economic reforms.

 

Article 2.  The main objectives of this Agreement are:

1. a) to uphold, protect, defend and promote economic sovereignty,
2. b) to conserve the national patrimony and protect the environment,
3. c) to carry out agrarian reform and national industrialization, and
4. d) to advance the rights of the working people, women, national and ethnic minorities and other exploited, oppressed, discriminated and disadvantaged sectors of society.

 

Article 3.  In entering into this agreement, the GRP is guided by its Constitution and the NDFP by theGuide for Establishing the People’s Democratic Government.  Accordingly, the Parties hold themselves responsible jointly and separately in implementing this Agreement.

Article 4.  The Parties are guided by such universally accepted principles and instruments of international law as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966, the International Labor Convention of 1948 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize and other similar or relevant international covenants.

Article 5. The Parties shall confront, remedy and prevent the most serious violations of economic, social and cultural rights.  They shall uphold the principle that no state, nation, class or group is allowed to invoke the right of  the individual in the abstract in order to oppress and exploit another state, nation, class or group; and that their overriding objective is social justice and the common good.  They shall work to redress the injustices and discrimination inflicted on the working people, women, national and ethnic minorities and other exploited, oppressed and discriminated sectors.

Article 6.  The Parties agree to constitute or cause the formation of a political authority enjoying the trust and confidence of the people and empowered to ensure that both Parties carry out this Agreement in full.  Such political authority shall be the subject of negotiations between the Parties under the agenda of political and constitutional reforms in accordance with The Hague Declaration and othe subsequent agreements.

Article 7.  The Parties as well as the political authority to be constituted under their joint initiative shall respect the inviolability of contracts, without prejudice to the review, renegotiation and rescission of contracts contrary to or in circumvention of this Agreement.  All contracts deemed contrary to, or in circumvention of, this Agreement shall be forthwith reversed, renegotiated or rescinded.

 

Part III

ECONOMIC SOVEREIGNTY AND NATIONAL PATRIMONY

Our country and its people have suffered foreign economic exploitation for more than four centuries, first under Spanish colonial masters, then US colonial and imperialist masters and now by foreign multinational corporations and multilateral agencies of the dominant capitalist powers, particularly the United States, Japan and the European Union.   Every year, foreign monopoly firms and banks draw from our shores huge amounts of capital in the form of repatriated profits, dividends, royalties and capital. Together with the mounting import bill, amortization of loans and interest payments to foreign entities, these huge amounts of capital outflow have resulted in chronic balance of payments deficits.   The lack of economic opportunity and the depressed economic conditions in our country compel our workers and professionals to seek jobs and a better life in the increasingly exploitative, oppressive and inhospitable working and living conditions of other countries, thereby draining our human resources.

The Philippine environment has been wantonly violated and degraded.  This disaster impelled by the exploiters’ greed for profit has caused displacement of hundreds of thousands of our people from their habitation, among them the national and ethnic minorities from their ancestral lands.  The rapacious activities of foreign corporations and their local partners take no heed of the well-being of our people and their environment.

Under these circumstances, the Parties recognize that the will and unity of the Filipino people must be forged to promote and achieve economic sovereignty and secure our national patrimony.   To this end, the Parties, jointly and separately, assume the duties and responsibilities in effecting  the Articles hereunder.

Article 1. The Parties recognize the need for the Filipino people to liberate the economy from foreign dominance and pursue a program of  national economic development that harnesses both the public and private sectors.

Article 2.  All resources of the public domain, including land, waters, minerals, coal, petroleum and other mineral oils, all forces of potential energy, fisheries, forests, wildlife, flora and fauna and other natural resources shall not be alienated.   In this regard, the legitimate interests of settlers and national and ethnic minorities shall be fully respected.

Article 3.  All mining operations shall be strictly regulated with the objective of ensuring the domestic processing of mineral ores up to the secondary and tertiary stages of industrial production while at the same time guaranteeing environmental protection, social compensation for disturbance and damage caused as well as democratic consultation with, and the consent of, the people in the communities immediately and directly affected by such operations.

Article 4. Commercial logging shall be prohibited until sufficient forest cover for the country has been regenerated.  All logging shall be reserved exclusively for Filipino nationals. A program of forestry management and rehabilitation, including massive reforestation and afforestation campaigns, assured of adequate budgetary appropriations, shall be carried out. Municipal logging by communities adjacent to the forests shall be allowed with adequate measures and supervision to ensure proper culling.

Article 5.  The nation’s marine wealth in its archipelagic waters, territorial seas and exclusive economic zone shall be protected and its use shall be reserved exclusively for Filipino nationals.  Cooperative fish farming, subsistence fishermen and fishworkers in rivers, lakes, bays and lagoons shall be assured of preferential rights thereto.

Article 6. The Parties, jointly and separately, as well as the political authority constituted under their initiative shall adopt measures and take decisive steps to achieve genuine technology transfer to Filipino enterprises from foreign entities supplying machinery, equipment and technical processes. These shall include, among other measures, practices such as compulsory licensing, compulsory disclosure, limited duration  for patents and purchase of patents.

Article 7.  A policy to develop our human resources and expand secure and well-compensated job opportunities for all Filipino nationals shall be adopted. The policy shall undertake to encourage intellectuals and scientists in the conduct of scientific and technological research, development and education through adequate budgetary and other support.

Article 8.  Filipino scientists, technologists and workers shall have first priority of employment in all enterprises; however, where no Filipino experts are qualified, foreign experts may be hired on contract for no more than five years within which they shall transfer full and complete knowledge and skills to Filipinos.

Article  9.  Research and preservation of the positive cultural heritage of the Filipino people shall be strongly supported. The outstanding cultural legacies of our people, including the signal achievement of being the first to wage a revolution against Western colonialism and aspire to establish a democratic republic in the region,  shall be promoted through research, the arts and other cultural activities.

Article 10. Commonly available and wild varieties of flora and fauna shall not be the subject of appropriation by private and foreign agencies through intellectual property conventions such as patents and licenses.  Where allowed, patenting of varieties of flora and fauna on Philippine territory shall be the exclusive privilege and preserve of Filipino nationals or entities.   The patenting of all human genes shall be prohibited.

Article 11. All existing laws, treaties and other issuances adverse to the preservation and protection of our national patrimony such as, but not limited to, the Mining Act of 1995,  the Foreign Investments Act of 1991, the Land Lease Law of 1995, the RP-Japan Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation of 1975 and the Privatization Act of 1989 shall be immediately repealed, abrogated or rescinded.

 

Part IV.

AGRARIAN REFORM AND AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

The problem of landlessness among tillers of the soil has persisted since the Spanish era.  The Spanish encomienda system as transplanted to our shores led to the dispossession of the native peasants. The hacienda system introduced by the Spanish religious orders in 1644 further entrenched the feudal structure imposed by the Spanish colonialists and has remained up to the present. The impact of 19th century capitalist development started the transformation into a semifeudal economy by encouraging the production of export crops such as sugar, coconut and hemp.

The impingement of foreign monopoly capitalism has preserved the semifeudal character of the Philippine economy. As of 1996, tenancy existed in 35 percent of all Philippine farms and in 26 percent of the total farm area, compared to 26 percent tenancy rate  of all Philippine farms in 1980.  This indicates that all past “land reform” exercises of successive Philippine administrations have not eliminated, but have even worsened, the semifeudal character of the economy.

There is the overwhelming resistance of the big landlord class to any significant breakup of their land monopoly in favor of their landless tenants.  All GRP-legislated land reform schemes have catered to the wishes of the landlords and have thus reduced land reform to real estate business transactions.

 

Agrarian reform is the main content of the demand for social justice and is the key component  of democratization in our country because it lays the ground for the economic, political, social and cultural liberation of what continues to be the most numerous class in Philippine society.

With this in perspective, the Parties agree to assume separate and joint duties and responsibilities in effecting the following program for genuine agrarian reform in the Philippines to address the age-old problem of landlessness of the tillers:

Article 1. Land monopoly shall be broken up and safeguards against land remonopolization or refeudalization shall be instituted.  The expropriation of all agricultural lands and other agricultural means of production owned by landlords shall be undertaken.  The expropriated land shall be redistributed for free to the tillers, with preference given to those who have been occupying their lands as tenants and leaseholders. The sale, mortgage or any other encumbrance or mode of transfer of all expropriated land shall be prohibited, except to the peasant associations or the political authority constituted under the initiative of the Parties, in cases where the owner-tillers can no longer till the land for one reason or another.

 

Article 2. The policy of compensation shall be adopted to encourage landlords, whose lands and other agricultural means of production are expropriated, to invest in industrial and other productive enterprises.

Article 3.  The policy of expropriation with compensation shall apply to landlords who have a proven record of actively supporting progressive land reform.  The relevant or effective organ of political power in the area, in close democratic consultation with the peasant associations, shall determine the specific applicability, amount and methods of compensation, according to the general guidelines outlined in this Agreement or in a new agrarian law to be subsequently agreed upon by the Parties.

Article 4.  Landlords are proven to have engaged in landgrabbing and proven guilty of serious crimes such as extrajudicial executions, maintaining private armies, etc., particularly in connection with agrarian disputes, shall have their land subjected to outright confiscation.  Abandoned agricultural lands and other lands not put into productive use shall be subject to expropriation without compensation. Such expropriation shall be undertaken by the effective organ of political power in the area,  in demcratic consultation with the peasants and their associations.

Article 5. Land shall be distributed for free to enable the poor peasants, farm workers and lower-middle peasants to achieve the status of middle-middle peasants.   In the distribution of land, the principle of equity shall be applied based on the following consideration:

1. the total amount of land available for distribution in the area;
2. the size and labor power of  the beneficiary family or household; and
3. the quality and location of the land, and
4. the type of crop to be planted.

        

Article 6. The policy of expropriation shall extend to land used by capitalist farms.  Subject to negotiations based on national interest, Filipino owners of capitalist farms may retain ownership of their non-land assets like farm machinery, warehouses, buildings, offices and vehicles, and engage the new owners of agricultural land in joint corporate or cooperative relationship, or may be encouraged to sell or lease the aforementioned properties to the new owners.

 

Article 7.  All nontilling small landowners with holdings not exceeding 15 hectares shall not be subject to expropriation but shall be encouraged to sell their land.  The purchase value of their lands shall be equivalent to the value assessed for previous tax payments, except in the case of nontilling small owners who purchased the land within the last ten years and who shall be paid the going market price.

Article 8. Owner-peasants of middle-middle status may be given some share of the land being distributed free, subject to land availability, in order to raise their level of livelihood, provided they themselves shall till the land and that their land share does not give them the status of  rich peasants.

Article 9.  Workers, handicraftsmen, peddlers and other poor nonpeasants who are willing to till the soil may be given, subject to land availability, a share of the land being distributed free.  Should they continue to have means of livelihood other than tilling the soil, their land share shall be correspondingly adjusted.

Article 10.  Work animals, farm implements and other property expropriated from the landlords shall be distributed free based on the principle of equity or turned over to the peasant association for administration and common use.

Article 11.  Surplus landholdings and other means of production of rich peasants and  and upper-middle peasants shall not be subject to expropriation.  These peasants shall be enjoined and persuaded to raise the wages of the farm workers they hire or reduce the rent paid to them by their tenants in accordance with standards set by the peasant association.

Article 12.   Homes, industrial and commercial enterprises, artisans’ shops, schools, religious houses, plazas, public playgrounds and the like shall be alloted their necessary land sites, which shall actually, directly and exclusively be used for such purposes.

Article 13.  Pending the free distribution of land, all tenants shall be assured of ownership of free home lots from their landlord.

Article 14.  Landlords may be allotted part of their land to the same extent and quality given to the poor peasants and lower-middle peasants, provided that they shall till the land themselves.   Landlords with a proven record of actively supporting progressive land reform shall be allowed to retain a piece of land equivalent to that owned by a rich peasant.

Article 15.  Persons of good standing who have left their home barrios shall upon their return be given due share of the land being distributed, provided that they shall  till  the land themselves.

Article 16. The lease and leaseback arrangements with foreign corporations involving vast tracts of land or plantations such as  Dole (Philippines) and Del Monte (Philippines) in Mindanao, shall be immediately terminated and the contracts rescinded. These plantations shall be nationalized and run by the workers and peasants under cooperative or national corporate management.

Article 17.  Expropriated  haciendas cultivated by wage workers shall be converted into workers’ cooperatives or collectives upon democratic consultation with the workers tilling the land.   However, tenanted haciendas shall be subject to free land distribution to their tenants.

Article 18.  Leased lands devoted to ranches and cattle farming shall  be expropriated  and transformed into workers’ cooperatives or collectives, upon democratic consultation with the peasants and workers on these lands. The compensation, if any, for cattle, horses and other livestock on these ranches and farms shall be determined through consultation between the peasants and workers on these lands and the current owner/s of the livestock.  Lands suitable for tillage but covered by leases for ranches and cattle farms shall be redistributed to landless tillers.

Article 19. Land formerly occupied as military bases and other military reservations or parts thereof  which are suitable for agriculture may be redistributed to landless tillers.

Article 20.  Nonowner-operated  privately-owned fishing areas, including those in marine and inland  waters, shall  be expropriated and all private leases of the same shall be immediately terminated.  These areas shall revert to the public domain and shall be used mainly as communal fishing grounds.  Municipal fishing grounds shall be protected from encroachments by big local and foreign fishing boats.

Article 21.   Land used as fishponds, including prawn farms, shall be covered by land reform.  Where tenancy relations operate, fishponds shall be distributed for free to the the tenants.  Where wage relations operate and partitioning will adversely affect productivity, fishponds shall be transformed into publicly-owned farms or into cooperatives or collectives, subject to democratic consultations with the workers therein.

Article 22. The welfare of all agricultural workers in terms of adequate wages, satisfactory working conditions, retirement and other benefits shall be promoted and undertaken.

Article 23. The right of national and ethnic minorities to their ancestral domain shall be recognized and their communal property rights shall be guaranteed under this Agreement. The demarcation of their ancestral and communal lands shall be determined through democratic consultation with them and their associations.

Article 24.  Peasant cooperatives and collectives shall be formed and promoted to consolidate the gains of agrarian reform and raise agricultural and all related production.  They shall also be encouraged and assisted by the public sector in establishing and operating tree farms, orchards, fishponds, livestock farms, pasture land, carpentry shops, farm machinery depots, pools of work animals and rural industries that are beyond the work or ownership scale of  single households.

Article 25. The cooperatives and collectives shall be run through peasants’ associations in their respective areas or  localities.  Peasants who have been granted free land shall have the choice to either individually work on their lands or be organized into cooperatives or collectives.

Article 26. Owner-peasants who are not beneficiaries of free land redistribution shall be encouraged to form cooperatives through such incentives as technical assistance and credit privileges.

Article 27.  A program shall be implemented to attain self-sufficiency in food production through extensive capital investment in the countryside. Agricultural production shall be primarily geared to domestic demand in order to achieve food self-reliance and to supply raw materials for domestic industrial production.

Article 28.  Land-use conversion of prime agricultural land devoted to food production shall be prohibited. Economic or agrarian schemes or policies of the GRP legitimizing the conversion of prime agricultural lands into so-called industrial estates, urban-housing estates and subdivisions, golf courses or for the cultivation of  export luxury crops shall be immediately terminated and reversed.

 Article 29.  The public sector shall ensure food security in grain, protein sources and cooking oil and maintain prices at a level beneficial and encouraging to the peasant producers.  Usury and other unduly exploitative practices in the trading of agricultural inputs and produce shall be combated, prohibited and eventually eliminated.

Article 30. To increase productivity in the agricultural sector, financial assistance in the form of subsidies for the purchase or rent of farm machinery and equipment shall be extended to cooperatives and collectives.  Low interest or interest-free credit within  definite periods of time shall likewise be offered to peasant associations to enable them to expand their production and raise productivity to assure the urban areas of a stable supply of food and other agricultural products.

 

Article 31.  The provision of more farm technicians, agricultural credit  to the tillers, post-harvest facilities, marketing agencies, irrigation systems and farm-to-market roads shall be an integral part of the agrarian reform program.

Article 32. Fair farmgate prices shall be paid for the peasants’ produce.  Such prices shall be determined in democratic consultation with peasant associations on the basis of affording the peasants a stable and decent standard of living.

Article 33.  Rural banks shall be established and their primary clientele shall be the agricultural cooperatives and collectives.

 Article 34.  In line with this Agreement, a new agrarian law shall be enacted to breakup land monopoly by a small number of big landowners and prevent land remonopolization;  to  redistribute agricultural lands for free to the broad masses of the peasants and farm workers; and to set up cooperatives and collectives among the peasants and farm workers  for the purpose of raising production in agriculture and side occupations. Such law shall also contain provisions guaranteeing the reform of the fishing sector to benefit the broad masses of the fisherfolk. The new agrarian law shall be subject to negotiations between the Parties.

 

Article 35.   A Joint Agrarian Institute whose personnel are to be nominated by the peasant associations shall be established. The Institute shall supervise the implementation of agrarian reform in close cooperation with the peasant associations.  Peasant associations shall be at the forefront in the implementation of the new agrarian law referred to in the immediately preceding article.  The Joint Agrarian Institute shall be subject to negotiations between the Parties.

Article 36.  The participation of peasant associations and other nongovernmental people’s organizations shall be given full play in supporting the realization of agrarian reform and agricultural development.

 

Part V.

NATIONAL INDUSTRIALIZATION  AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The Parties recognize that national industrialization is the key to the establishment of a modern and diversified industrial economy that can secure the livelihood of the masses, guarantee the satisfaction of their basic needs, ensure rapid and sustained economic growth and achieve economic independence from imperialist domination.

National industrialization entails maximum self-sufficiency in the industrial production of capital, intermediate and consumer  goods for domestic needs based on national potential.  Its objective is to break the neocolonial pattern of production, investments, and trade based mainly on the export of agricultural and extractive raw materials, the importation of surplus finished goods, agricultural commodities and capital, and the re-export of reassembled or repackaged imported manufactures.

Economic development  can avail of the comprehensively rich natural resource base, the skilled forces of production, including the workers, peasants, pool of scientists and technologists and the rest of the Filipino people, who at the same time are the primary consumers.  Likewise, the development of industry, science and technology can reverse the drain of highly competent and skilled human resources for whose development huge investments have been expended from the social product.

            The monopolization of capital and domination of the economy by the combined forces of the foreign capitalists and the domestic big compradors and the consequent exploitative national and social relations have resulted in maldevelopment and widespread poverty.  The Parties recognize that the development of the domestic forces of production requires as a precondition the dismantling of such monopolization and dominance.

In cognizance of the above, the Parties agree to assume separate and joint duties and responsibilities to pursue national industrialization and self-reliant economic development in accordance with the following:

Article 1.  The Parties agree to break the dominance of foreign monopoly capitalists and the comprador big bourgeoisie over the means of production and the economy, mainly through expropriation of foreign-monopoly and  big-comprador assets.

Article 2.  The Parties agree to undertake the expropriation and nationalization of the direct investments and other profit-making assets of US, Japanese and other foreign monopoly capitalists in vital and strategic industries. Where necessary, the manner of compensation as well as exceptions to this policy shall be subject to negotiation.  Exemptions shall be made only in cases of exceptional record  with respect to contributions to the national economy, in terms of technology transfer, worker policy and access to products or markets as defined by a specific economic plan.  However, in no case shall foreign equity exceed 40 percent in these enterprises.

Article 3.  Assets of big compradors and bureaucrat capitalists shall be expropriated.   Their cartels and big monopoly commercial operations shall be dismantled.  However, the disposition of their productive assets or enterprises used as base for their commercial operations shall be subject to negotiation based on national interest.    Ill-gotten assets of bureaucrat capitalists shall be subject to immediate confiscation.

Article 4.  The Parties agree that public-sector enterprises, variations of joint public-private venture, cooperative and individual entrepreneurship shall all be recognized as legitimate modes of ownership of enterprises.  As a primary emphasis, production and distribution shall be oriented towards achieving overall social and economic goals.

Article 5. The Parties agree that the public sector shall assume ownership and operation of vital and strategic enterprises, the main sources of raw materials, and the main lines of distribution.  The public sector shall be wholly responsible for all utilities (power, water and sanitation, communications-telecommunications and postal services, and mass transport) and social services (housing, health, education, social security).  Comprehensive plans shall be drawn up and implemented to improve the provision of public utilities and services to all the people and to preclude profit-determined allocations.

Article  6.  All industrial enterprises and mechanized farms shall have workers’ councils whose representatives shall sit in the board of directors or trustees and participate in policy making and management. The policy and decision-making authority of the workers’ councils shall cover production, marketing, and overall organizational management.   Workers’ participation in running industry shall be further strengthened through encouragement of and incentives for collective ownership and control of enterprises.

Article 7.  Where there are unions in an enterprise, the workers shall have the option to organize the  workers’ council through the union or to directly organize a separate workers’ council alongside the union.

Article 8.  Cooperatives of small and medium-scale manufacturers shall be encouraged and supported.

Article 9.  The national bourgeoisie and smaller private owners of the means of production shall be given support for their creativity and efforts.  They shall be given the necessary incentives and support in areas where their private initiative will be most productive.

Article 10.   State-owned real estate, buildings and facilities are public assets and their disposition shall be determined according to the requirements of the general program of national industrialization.

 Article 11.  Savings for industrial development shall be generated by setting definite limits on the allocation of public funds for the military and police, imported equipment for the use of offices and infrastructure projects that are not directly related to industrial and agricultural development.

Article 12.  Foreign investments and loans shall be availed of only in cases of clearly   unreplicable advantages in terms of technology transfer or access to capital, products or markets as defined by specific economic plans.

Article 13.  Foreign corporations and entities in manufacturing enterprises may be allowed a minority equity share.  Safeguards shall be adopted against such devices or schemes as the use of dummies, interlocking directorates and shell corporations.

Article 14.  The retail trade industry shall be exclusively in the hands of Filipino nationals.  The moves towards “liberalizing” or opening retail trade to aliens shall be reversed and measures taken to stop the pervasive violation and circumvention of this agreed policy of limiting retail trade exclusively to Filipino nationals.

Article 15.  All foreign capital shall be subject to strict regulation and supervision with regard to employment practices, access to capital, pricing, profit remittances and  capital repatriation.  Regulation shall particularly focus on the entry of all forms of foreign speculative capital,  on capital repatriation in whatever form (profits, royalties, franchises, or through transfer-pricing) and on access to domestic capital and shall have the objective of reversing the continuous drain of capital from the country.

Article  16.   The Parties agree to acquire and develop the capacity for producing the industrial goods necessary for industrialization and to break the prevailing economic structure designed along the needs of foreign monopoly capital and having  the effect of keeping domestic industry backward.

Article 17.  The Parties agree to adopt social planning for the purpose of ensuring balanced and well-proportioned economic development, with heavy industry as the leading factor, agriculture as the base and light industry as the bridging factor of the economy for immediately producing basic consumer goods for the entire people and producer goods needed by agriculture.

Article 18.  All  economic plans shall, on the basis of the concrete situation at any given  time, specify the phasing of industrial development and shall ensure that priorities are adhered to.  Strategic industrial objectives shall be the overriding consideration in the formulation and implementation of such economic plans.

Article 19.  Measures to ensure and encourage national industrialization, including but not restricted to tariffs, tax exemptions, foreign exchange controls, credit and investment incentives, quotas or outright import prohibitions, shall be adopted and used to encourage production in the import-substitution industries, which are essential to the creation of a domestic industrial base.

Article 20.  Favored and protected industries under Article 19 immediately above shall be subject to controls aimed at preventing monopolistic behavior and ensuring productivity improvements. Performance requirements shall be drawn up and strictly implemented.

Article 21.  Importation of necessary capital goods shall be undertaken, especially in the initial stages of industrialization, with a view to building the country’s capital goods industry and ending import-dependence as soon as possible.

Article 22.  The development of industry shall be programmed in accordance with the availability of resources and with due consideration of the capability and wellbeing of the people, especially the worker and peasant masses.

Article 23.  The Parties agree to develop heavy industry as the leading factor in a comprehensive and well-balanced development of the economy and shall be guided by the following:

1. Priority shall be given to the creation and/or expansion of a modern industrial sector producing capital and intermediate goods.  Basic heavy and medium industries shall be built for the production of base metals, basic chemicals, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, machinery, precision instruments, electronics, and consumer durables. These shall ensure that the industries producing the consumer goods and rural producers’ goods, including farm machinery and equipment, post-harvest storage and processing facilities, are sustained in the long-run.  Special emphasis shall be given to maximum use of locally available raw materials.

 

1. The public sector shall be responsible for ensuring the production and provision of energy sources.  It shall likewise ensure the provision of utilities and infrastructure, and of essential social services needed by industry.
2. Higher-stage and end-product domestic processing of such raw materials as coconuts, sugar, metal ores and the like shall be encouraged and given priority in lieu of the current preference for and practice of raw-material production-for-export.
3. Ecological considerations in industrial development shall be given due emphasis and attention in order to counter or eliminate the destructive effect on the people’s health and the environment of certain heavy industrial processes. Measures to ensure the protection and efficient utilization of the country’s renewable and non-renewable resource base shall be instituted.

Article 24.  The Parties agree to make agriculture the base of the economy.  In order to realize the goal of national industrialization, genuine agrarian reform shall be undertaken in the agricultural sector.  This shall be developed to perform its critical role as a source of investible surplus direct from the peasants to national industry, as a vast market for the  consumers’ and producers’ goods yielded by the industrial sector and as a source of raw materials for industry.

1. Industrial production shall aim at adequately meeting the consumption and production needs of the peasantry, as a goal in itself and insofar as the domestic market serves as the anchor of industrialization efforts, especially in the early stages when it is difficult to compete internationally.
2. Industrial production shall be geared towards agricultural mechanization, modernization, and productivity increases to effect maximum accumulation of capital as well as to ensure food security.
3. Rural industrialization shall build on the expansion of rural markets and on agricultural modernization to increase manufacturing activities and generate employment opportunities in the rural areas.  Initially, foundries and metal workshops are to be set up and blacksmithing revived.  All rural industries shall maximize all forms of linkages to the urban areas.

Article 25.  The Parties agree to reorient light industry, which for a long time has consisted mainly of import-dependent low value-added processing of goods for export, towards its development as the bridging factor for immediately producing the basic consumer goods for the entire people and such producers’ goods as agricultural inputs, tools and light machinery needed by the agricultural sector.

1. While due emphasis given to developing heavy industries, the primary concern of economic planning shall be to serve the basic needs of the people, especially the basic masses.  This is to ensure mass support for the industrialization drive as a major goal of development.
2. Basic and essential consumer goods industries shall be expanded as rapidly as possible to ensure widespread access to consumer necessities.  Priority shall be given to light industry including  the processing of grains, cereals, fruits and vegetables, beverages and dairy products, meat and poultry; aquaculture and fisheries, clothing-footwear, textile and garment industries and mass housing.
3. Industrial capacity in the production of rural producer goods shall be immediately established as the first stage in the process of agricultural mechanization and increasing agricultural productivity.  Priority shall be given to light industry in the production of agricultural equipment, including hand tools, farm implements, light motors, biomass-based fertilizers, improved seed varieties and feeds.

Article 26.  The Parties shall take appropriate steps to reverse the current practice of corporations, particularly foreign, of concentrating industries in a few urban trading centers and without linkages to the rural sector.

Article  27.  The Parties agree to give a high premium on the development of the country’s capabilities in science and technology as an essential requirement for rapid and sustained expansion of productive capacity.  Measures shall be taken to break the foreign monopoly capitalists’ exclusive control over key industrial technologies that enable them to perpetuate domination and control over particular industrial subsectors and over the entire economy as well as to keep domestic industrial processes backward.

Article 28.  The Parties shall adopt measures to promote research and development in the basic and applied sciences.  Conscious and sustained investment in developing science and technology shall be undertaken, together with protective measures, in the  active effort to develop domestic productive capacity.  To this end:

1. The historical and prevailing neglect of the country’s science and technology infrastructure shall be corrected and adequate resources shall be allocated to programs geared towards its development.
2. An adequate supply of skilled, competent and progressive human resources geared towards domestic needs and priorities rather than those of foreign corporations shall be ensured by:
3. Developing and propagating comprehensive curricula in the basic sciences, engineering, modern agricultural techniques and management.
4. Setting-up the necessary implementing infrastructure, including teachers and instructors, schools and other learning centers and facilities; and, in particular, expanding scientific, engineering, and vocational-technical schools.

iii.  Granting incentives to students in the form of scholarships and other required support and providing outlets for their skills that are in the national interest.

Article 29.  The Parties shall conduct a survey of indigenous technologies that are relevant and appropriate, particularly with respect to the domestic processing of agricultural and industrial raw materials, with a view to their harnessing, expanded use and upgrading.

Article 30.  The Parties shall take measures to augment the domestic stock of technological knowledgeby selectively tapping personnel and equipment from abroad, by entering into technology-sharing and technology-development agreements with other countries and by actually sending Filipinos overseas to learn technological advances with a view to adapting these to our needs and capacities.

Article 31.  The Parties shall ensure that delivery mechanisms for science and technology research outputs are set up to encourage economic enterprises to utilize the results of research and translate these into greater opportunities for economic development genuinely aimed at improving the general well-being of the people.  The active participation of productive enterprises and mass organizations in science and technology development, as users and themselves as sources of innovation, shall be encouraged and stimulated.

Article 32.  The Parties recognize the expediency of ‘appropriate technologies’,  without prejudice to the need for overall technological development and for a long-term orientation of judiciously developing and using high technology.

Article 33.  The GRP agrees to repeal or rescind all its laws, orders and issuances allowing the foreign exploitation of the Philippine economy.  (Refer to Annex B: List of Iniquitous GRP Laws to be provided.)

 

Part VI.

ECONOMIC PLANNING

Under the guidance of a genuinely patriotic, democratic and socially-responsible national leadership, the economy can be consciously geared towards serving the needs of the Filipino people,especially the basic masses of workers and peasants, through social planning to delineate a state sector, a cooperative and collective sector, and a private sector.

The objective is to break free from the neocolonial pattern of production, investments, and trade based mainly on the export of agricultural and extractive raw materials, the import of finished goods, agricultural commodities and capital, and the re-export of reassembled or repackaged imported manufactures; and establish a modern and diversified economy that secures the livelihood of the mass of the people and guarantees the satisfaction of their basic needs.

The strategic plan is to make heavy and basic industries the leading factor, with agriculture as the base and light industry as the bridging factor to satisfy the basic needs of the people and cause rapid accumulation of funds for investment.

The so-called free market, which is in fact dominated by and subject to the drive of the foreign monopoly capitalists, the dominant capitalist powers and their multilateral agencies to further globalize their profit-extraction and profit-taking, runs counter to national economic planning. The monopoly capitalists’ “free market” has only served the selfish interests of the economically powerful whose main aim is profit and has exacerbated widespread poverty and gross social inequality. Thus, the necessity of a deliberate policy of subordinating the market to social objectives. The market can serve social goals only if geared to do so within the framework of an overall economic development plan.  In appreciation of these facts, the Parties commit themselves to pursue, jointly and separately, national economic planning in accordance with the following:

Article 1. The Parties agree to adopt measures to break the domination and control of the foreign monopoly capitalists and their local agents over domestic economic policymaking and  planning and put these in the hands of the Filipino people through their mass organizations and their patriotic and progressive leaders.

Article 2.  The Parties recognize that the unfettered operation of the “free market” will work against anynational economic plan having the welfare of the majority of Filipinos as its primary concern and agree to pursue overall economic and social goals  effectively through economic planning that takes systematic account of the availability of labor power and required skills, land and  capital; technology; gestation periods; scale economies; forward and backward linkages; environmental implications and competing claims on investible resources at an economy-wide level.

Article 3.  The Parties shall tap and direct the country’s human and natural resource potential to benefit the majority of the people, as opposed to allowing its appropriation by parasitic foreign and local exploiting classes, and shall ensure that domestic patterns of production and consumption are determined according to domestic needs and capacity.

Article 4.  The Parties shall actively and consciously strive to redirect the economy away from its current agrarian and pre-industrial level of development, taking into consideration the multiple objectives of eliminating poverty, reducing income inequality,  and rationalizing consumption, investment and growth.

Article 5. The Parties shall adopt definite measures designed to prevent destructive imbalances in the economy through  economic plans characterized by the following:

1. Well-balanced growth among heavy industry, agriculture, and light industry, with heavy industry as the leading factor, agriculture as the base of the economy and light industry as the bridging factor primarily for immediately producing basic consumer goods for the entire people and producer goods needed by agriculture and  secondarily for producing a surplus for export,
2. Well-balanced growth between capital investment and   social welfare—with investment laying  the basis for developing industry as the leading sector and the primary means to economic development but satisfying the basic needs of the people, especially the workers and peasants, as the main content of economic development,
3. A proper mix between centralized, regional, and local development and  balanced geographic dispersal of the benefits of economic progress. The objective is to disperse industries to various regions in order to make social and economic development nationwide and in order to decongest the cities.

 

Article 6. The Parties agree on the necessity of having strategic economic plans in five-year periods and making yearly and timely adjustments, giving the highest priority to national industrialization as well as of using the public sector in allocating the funds for establishing or expanding heavy and basic industries.  Production target quotas shall be set for all enterprises: individual, cooperative and collective. Administrative decentralization and enterprise flexibility shall be encouraged, among others, through the operations of the market, which shall however not preclude overall coordination according to the economic plan.

Article 7.  In line with the objectives of general economic planning, the Parties agree to adopt a national land use policy to determine and develop the sections of land suitable for agricultural, industrial, reservation, recreational and other uses as well as to prevent the alienation of lands, marshes, rivers, and the like in order to ensure sustained and self-reliant development as well as ecological balance.

Article 8.  The Parties shall encourage the people through mass organizations and mass campaigns and mobilizations to be vigilant in ensuring that economic policy-making and enforcement is in line with their national and democratic aspirations.  The objective is to guarantee active and genuine participation of all democratic classes and the direct involvement of the people and the mass organizations of workers, peasants, fisherfolk, women, national and ethnic minorities, youth, cultural workers and others.

1. At one level, participation shall mean that the political authority constituted under the initiative of the Parties be genuinely representative of and accountable to the people.  At another, it means that the people in the enterprises and the communities themselves shall take part in planning and decision-making through democratic consultation.
2. The available information technology, e.g., telecommunications for enhancing efficiency of people’s participation in socioeconomic planning and management, shall be applied extensively for this purpose.

Article 9.  The Parties agree on the use of directive incentives and sanctions at the industry and firm levels to ensure adherence to plan priorities and  to institute schemes specifically directed at encouraging productivity improvements.

Article 10.  The Parties shall undertake vigorous campaigns in all civil agencies, institutions and organizations against all forms of graft, corruption and inefficiency, inasmuch as these grossly undermine the effectivity of the various tools of planning as well as contribute to massive bureaucratic waste.

Article 11.  The Parties agree to adopt a comprehensive and balanced national policy for the country’s natural resources and their all-round exploration, conservation, and development to redress  the pattern of neocolonial exchange of raw materials and manufactures that has resulted in the reckless depletion and intensified extraction of the country’s natural resources.  They shall institute measures to ensure a healthy natural environment, giving due regard to the protection and efficient utilization of the country’s renewable and non-renewable resource base.

Article l2.  The Parties shall undertake rational planning and zoning for urban and rural areas, coupled with proper environmental planning for the construction of roads, public transport facilities and buildings to alleviate congestion and pollution in every area and region.

Article 13. The GRP shall immediately stop its  practice of using privatization as a means to generate public sector resources and shall create sustainable sources of revenue that do not impose undue burden on the people, especially the workers and peasants.  Furthermore, it shall repeal or rescind all its existing laws, orders and issuances that run counter to a patriotic and pro-people orientation in socioeconomic planning such as RA 7721 which liberalizes the entry and scope of operations of foreign banks and the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program.

 

Part  VII.

RIGHTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE, LIVELIHOOD AND SOCIAL SERVICES

In consonance with their respective constitutions and with international conventions, the Parties undertake to uphold, protect and promote the collective and individual human rights of the working people, including the workers, peasants and intelligentsia, support their means of livelihood, raise their standard of living and make social services available to them to improve the quality of life.

The Parties commit themselves to creating the conditions for increasing socioeconomic opportunities, such as jobs, free education and medical services, cultural development, etc., for the people  so that they can develop their full potentials and lead meaningful lives. The GRP shall undertake to reverse its policy of privatization of social services and government corporations in vital and strategic industries in order to increase its capability to assume its responsibility of promoting the people’s welfare.

Article 1.  The Parties shall promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities and shall guarantee the right of workers to work, organize themselves into unions, federations and confederations, engage in collective bargaining, to strike and engage in other concerted activities in advancing their rights and interests.

Article 2.  The Parties shall adopt measures to guarantee for the workers security of tenure, humane conditions of work and a decent living wage indexed to the rising cost of living, as well as to guarantee the right to sufficient relief or unemployment allowance in case of disemployment and assistance  in returning to work.

Article 3.  The Parties shall encourage government employees, including military and police personnel,to form unions.

Article  4.  The Parties shall guarantee for the peasants, farm workers, fishermen, national and ethnic minorities and other rural poor the enjoyment of democratic rights as well as support and assistance for them to increase production and raise their standard of living.

Article 5.  The  Parties shall likewise guarantee for the intelligentsia, whether self-employed or employed by others, the enjoyment of democratic rights and assistance for them to develop their skills and abilities and raise their standard of living.

Article 6.  The Parties shall work for the protection of the rights and welfare of Filipino overseas workers and to this end enter into agreements and arrangements with foreign governments and international agencies while  taking the necessary measures at home to reverse the problem of migration and the current labor-export policy.   A viable program for the repatriation of Filipino overseas workers and for their participation in nation-building shall be effected.

Article 7. Women shall enjoy equal opportunities as men in work, shall receive equal pay for equal work and  shall enjoy guarantees against discrimination and harassment.   Social services to lighten housework shall be provided, such as low-cost meals, cheap public laundry services and affordable day-care centers and nurseries.  Working women shall  be entitled to maternity leave with pay and guaranteed the support of their partners who shall also be entitled to paternity leave with pay.  Single parents and female household heads shall be assured benefits, including children’s education and health care.

Article 8. Positive measures shall be undertaken to redress the discrimination suffered by gays and lesbians and such other discriminated groups and categories.

Article 9. Positive measures shall likewise be undertaken in favor of national and ethnic minorities to redress the long history of their discrimination and neglect, to respect their right to self-determination or autonomy and their cultures and to help them to lift themselves to the level of the common good and common progress of the entire nation.

Article 10. An economic research office to register all the unemployed and underemployed in the labor force shall be established with the objective of guiding the political authority and the economic planning agency in adopting measures to generate employment and expand the infrastructure for social services.

Article 11.  Urban renewal and public housing shall be undertaken to service the housing needs of the working people and the urban poor.  No relocation of the urban poor shall be carried out without prior democratic consultation with them and without provision for adequate assistance in transfering, public housing and livelihood in the area of resettlement.  Otherwise, urban poor settlers shall temporarily be allowed to remain in the land that they occupy until such provisions can be met.

 

Article 12.  The public health system shall be expanded and improved and a comprehensive public health and medical care system providing free and subsidized services and medicines for all shall be established. It shall pay attention to preventive medicine,  better nutrition and family planning and shall give priority to delivering health care and medicine to the impoverished sick, aged, disabled, women and children.  The policy of privatization of hospitals and health services, which discriminates against the low-income sectors, shall be immediately stopped and reversed.

Article 13.  Education shall be a primary responsibility of the political authority constituted by the Parties and shall be made accessible to all Filipinos.  Free education shall be ensured at the primary and secondary level while affordable and eventually free education shall be provided at the tertiary level.  Private educational institutions shall be allowed provided these are administered according to the program of public education and shall be eventually assimilated into the public education sector. The GRP privatization of state colleges and universities shall be immediately stopped and reversed.  A national, scientific and democratic education shall be established to develop among students a sense of cultural identity and national self-confidence, critical thinking and social commitment.

Article 14.  The right of children to proper care and education shall be protected and upheld. A program of comprehensive child care to be fully or partially subsidized, whichever is possible, shall be established.  The present situation where thousands of children become sick or die or become street children must be immediately addressed with extensive social welfare programs for them.

Article 15.    Proper care for the aged shall be instituted and pension benefits for all retirees increased, calibrated to the rate of inflation and the cost of living. The aged shall be provided the necessary financial and social support to enable them to live with dignity.  Families with aged members to care for shall be allocated subsidies.  Old-age homes shall also be established and subsidized.  Retirees shall be assured of fulfilling lives and given opportunities to continue to be active and productive.

Article 16.   Social services and productive training for the handicapped shall be established and expanded and opportunities created for them to be productive and to  find fulfillment  along various lines where their special potentials and abilities are optimized.

 

Part VIII. 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, REHABILITATION AND COMPENSATION

The profit-driven nature of capitalist production, with the particular neocolonial pattern of production and trade, that overrides social and ecological considerations has been the main factor in the devastation of the Philippine environment and the consequent disasters that have plagued the country.  The strategy of export-led economic growth has opened the country’s natural resources to control and plunder by the foreign monopoly capitalists, big comprador bourgeoisie and bureaucrat capitalists.  As the imperialists and the local exploiting classes freely siphon off  the nation’s natural wealth, they leave behind a ravaged environment.    Industrial wastes like mine tailings and  carbon monoxide emissions  and  unsafe agricultural products pollute and destroy the environment. The GRP Mining Act of 1995 means the wholesale delivery of the national patrimony to the unbridled exploitation by foreign investors.  It opens the door wider to the destruction of the environment and the displacement of the national and ethnic minorities from their ancestral lands.

The Parties taking cognizance of the fact that the increasing degradation of the environment continues to exacerbate the immiseration of a growing majority of the people, therefor assume separate and joint duties and responsibilities in adopting measures to  ensure the following:

Article 1.  Environmental protection, conservation and wise use of natural resources shall be pursued for the well-being of the Filipino people.

Article 2.   Economic development shall be pursued with due regard for the  protection and efficient use of the country’s renewable and non-renewable resources.  Ensuring ecological balance shall be an important component of economic development planning.   Ecologically  sound farming  and industrial practices shall be promoted.

Article 3.   Ecologically destructive practices such as open-pit mining, monocrop production for export, the wanton clearing and leveling of land for golf courses,  resorts and real estate development shall be prohibited and penalties imposed on perpetrators for destruction caused.

Article 4.  Only with sufficient provisions for environmental protection and recovery shall mining be undertaken. The people in communities affected by mining operations shall be democratically consulted and asked to participate in the determination of just and appropriate social compensation.

Article 5.   The US military forces shall be prohibited from continued use of the Philippines as a military exercise area and arsenal for armaments and munitions under the guise of transit,  visit, acquisition of supplies and forward deployment. The United States government shall be held accountable for the toxic waste pollution of the land and environment in the former US military bases in the country.

Article 6.   No country shall be allowed to use the Philippines as  a storehouse for all kinds of war materiel or  armaments and munitions including nuclear, biological and chemical and other weapons of mass destruction.

Article 7.  The dumping by advanced industrial capitalist countries of their toxic wastes such as computer scraps, used batteries, PVC scraps and nuclear wastes in Philippine territory shall be stopped and compensation shall be demanded for damage caused to the people and their environment.

Article 8.  The entry of hazardous technologies and pollutant industries, which the industrial capitalist countries are relocating from their homegrounds, and likewise the entry of hazardous agricultural products shall be banned.

Article  9.  Military actions that target civilian population and devastate the environment, such as indiscriminate aerial bombardment and artillery fire, poisoning of water sources, use of biochemical weapons, and burning of crops, shall be banned and the perpetrators made criminally liable. The party responsible shall be made to pay compensation for injuries and loss of lives and for the destruction or damage to property and assets.  Victims or their surviving relatives shall receive full compensation.

Article 10.  The GRP practice of setting up power generation and other infrastructure projects such as hydroelectric dams and nuclear plants, without regard to  environmental impact and which cause displacement especially of peasants and national and ethnic minorities, shall be stopped.

Article 11.  Rehabilitation and development of natural resources shall be carried out. Commercial logging shall be prohibited until sufficient forest cover has been regenerated. Marine resources that have been depleted, polluted or destroyed by multinational firms and foreign fishing vessels shall likewise be regenerated and their continued exploitation banned.

Article  12.  A program addressing the problem of pollution, waste control and disposal and  lack of safe water supply shall be developed.

Article 13.  Education to promote environmental consciousness and ecologically sound practices shall be undertaken among the people through their mass organizations, the mass media and the school system.

Article 14. The GRP shall immediately repeal or rescind all its laws, orders and issuances and put a stop to its programs which facilitate landgrabbing by foreign monopoly firms and local bureaucrats, such as the National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS) and imperialist-funded programs such as the Natural Resource Management Program (NRMP)-Integrated Forest Management Agreement (IFMA).

 

Part IX.

MONETARY AND FISCAL POLICIES

The financial system is the heart of the economy of any nation. The control of this system can spur growth in chosen sectors of the economy by directing investible agricultural surplus towards industry and by allocating resources along investment priorities. It provides a state with the capacity to distribute equitably capital resources to its nationals.  The domination of private interests in banks and the money market works as a factor of inflation and depression of an economy. An egalitarian utilization of capital can result in the construction of more housing for the poor, the building of more schools and hospitals and the expansion of other social services which are of primary importance to the majority of the people.

The semicolonial and semifeudal conditions do not only generate a low savings-to-investment ratio but also a misallocation of resources away from areas of greater social benefit. All GRP expenditures are routinely padded to create bureaucrat capitalist profits for those in bureaucratic authority. The biggest single expenditure item in the GRP budget is the servicing of the public debt which has been bloated by the assumption of private foreign debt guaranteed by the GRP and by the public borrowings intended to implement tight-money conditionalities of the IMF and to enrich participating financial houses. The external debt has been further increased due to increasing official development assistance (ODA) borrowings entered into by GRP to fund projects mainly benefiting big business.

The GRP policy of privatization includes assets of social service agencies in obedience to imperialist demands to hand over the involved enterprises to the imperialists and their domestic partners. As a result, hospitals, schools and various utilities have been or are being privatized. On the other hand, expenditures for the military continue to increase. Despite the increase in revenues due to the privatization of state assets and the decrease in needed expenditures due to the same privatization, GRP regressive taxation system has continued to increase the tax burden on the people.

Recognizing the vital role that monetary and fiscal policies play in the development of the economy, the Parties agree to assume separate as well as joint duties and responsibilities to effect the following measures:

Article 1.  The financial system, including banks, insurance and investment houses and bond companies, shall be owned and controlled by the public sector and Filipino nationals.

Article 2. The expropriation of foreign equity in financial institutions, with or without compensation, shall be undertaken.  The manner of compensation as well as any exception to this policy shall be  subject to negotiation based on national interest.

Article 3.  Strict measures shall be undertaken to regulate the entry and operation of foreign speculative capital.

Article 4.  The GRP’s central bank and all its other financial institutions shall be reorganized and redirected to support and assist the policy and program of national industrialization and agrarian reform.They shall give priority to the industrial projects of the public sector and Filipino entrepreneurs. The GRP’s Land Bank and rural banks shall likewise be reorganized and redirected to support and assist genuine agrarian reform, as contemplated by this Agreement, cooperatives, collectives, peasant associations and agricultural production in general.

Article 5. In every financial institution, there shall be a workers’ council whose representatives shall sit in the board of directors or trustees and shall participate in policy making and management in order to ensure the realization of the policy and program of national industrialization and agrarian reform.  The scope of their participation in policy making shall cover investment decisions, debt management and other monetary policies.

Article 6.  Public finance, including taxation, credit policy, public and fiscal spending, shall be directed towards maximizing funds for the realization of the strategic plan of economic development, especially national industrialization and agrarian reform and eliminating bureaucratic, military and other counterproductive expenditures.   Credit windows in banks shall be opened for low-interest or no-interest loans for small enterprises and to assist poor families to meet their basic necessities.

Article 7.  Foreign exchange earned by exports and remittances of Filipino migrant workers and other overseas Filipinos shall be directed towards financing the importation of necessary industrial equipment and the fulfillment of the strategic economic plan.  Import financing for consumer products that are luxury goods or that can be produced in the country shall be phased out.

Article 8.  Foreign borrowing shall be reduced, except to finance deferred payments for the importation of equipment and technology for the establishment and development of heavy and basic industries.

Article 9.  Fiscal policy shall be a function of social planning which shall in turn be oriented towards continually expanding social welfare.  Priority in expenditures shall be given to social infrastructure, state investment in priority productive sectors, education and other social services. Public expenditures for infrastructure and the productive sectors of the economy shall be directed towards generating more employment for the people.

Article 10. The budgetary allocations for the military shall be drastically trimmed and the savings redirected to allocations for social services such as education, health, public housing, mass transportation,  and the like.

Article 11.  Taxation shall be progressive.   All regressive taxes such as the value-added tax on basic consumer goods shall be abolished.

Article 12.  As an immediate corrective measure, the GRP’s law on automatic appropriation for the public portion of the foreign debt service shall be repealed.  

Article 13.  All past foreign debts shall be immediately reexamined to determine which are to be canceled, frozen, renegotiated or litigated.  All fraudulent and behest loans shall be repudiated and renegotiations of all other onerous loans shall be undertaken.  Those who have previously incurred or used these foreign debts and privately benefited from them shall be prosecuted and made criminally and civilly liable.

Article  14.  The GRP policy and program of privatization instigated by the International Monetary Fund shall be reversed and repudiated.

Article 15.  The GRP shall undertake to repeal or rescind all its laws, orders and issuances which are inconsistent with or contrary to the above policies and measures such as the Banking Law of 1994, and the Presidential Decree on Offshore Banking.

 

Part X. 

FOREIGN ECONOMIC AND TRADE RELATIONS

            The trade policy of the Philippines has always served the demands of its different colonizers and neocolonizers since the 16th century. The Spanish colonial regime in the Philippines engaged in the galleon trade, serving the needs of Mexico, up to 1813, and later in the tobacco monopoly, which supplied tobacco to Spain.

The US adopted free trade in the Philippines in 1909, taking advantage of the abundant resources in the Islands, particularly hemp, sugar and coconut. Throughout the periods of the three Philippine republics, the United States, first as a colonial master and after World War II as a neocolonial master, transformed the Philippines first into an export-oriented and import-dependent colonial and later semicolonial economy through various agreements with US-influenced and dominated economic institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and, more recently, the World Trade Organization (WTO). Through all these periods, the Philippines has suffered mounting trade deficits from year to year. The promised trade surplus through an “export-oriented industrialization” (EOI) program, promoted by the IMF-WB, has not materialized.

With a mounting import bill generated by the imposition of greater import liberalization through the constant reduction of tariffs mandated by Philippine membership in the WTO, small Filipino enterprises have closed down or retrenched, causing the impoverishment and unemployment of thousands of workers.  The  policy of “globalization” favors the multinational corporations and banks doing business in the Philippines and puts small and medium-sized domestic enterprises at a disadvantage. These enterprises are the first ones to close down in the face of undue disadvantage in the competition with the foreign corporate giants.  By the end of 1995 alone, 32,000 workers had lost their jobs due to the trade liberalization policy of the GRP.  The recurrent financial crises have caused disemployment to rise exponentially.

 

Acknowledging that the long-standing export-oriented and import-dependent trade policy has worsened the lot of the overwhelming majority of Filipinos as well as  the general economic conditions of the country, the Parties agree to assume separate as well as joint duties and responsibilities to adopt the following trade policy:

Article 1.  The Parties shall halt and reverse the further denationalization of the economy through the policies of deregulation and liberalization of trade and investments which have been dictated by dominant capitalist countries and by their multilateral agencies like the IMF,WB and WTO.

Article 2   The export-oriented program as promoted by the IMF-WB shall be reversed.  Industrialization shall not be tied to exports and the attraction of foreign investors to engage in export activities. Export-processing zones and industrial enclaves which perpetuate the neocolonial character of the economy shall be closed or converted for use in self-reliant production of goods to meet domestic needs.

Article 3.  A policy of protection of enterprises owned and controlled by Filipino nationals, which entails the discontinuation of the liberalization program, shall be adopted and pursued.  The GRP policy of import dependency that has led to the stagnation  of Philippine technology and the dumping of surplus goods and obsolete technology into the country, particularly from the US and Japan, shall be repudiated.

Article 4.  The highest priority shall be given to the importation of industrial equipment and technology to advance the program of national industrialization. Trade and investment  policies that have reduced the country to a mere exporter of raw materials, low value-added manufactures and human resources shall be terminated.

Article 5.  A trade policy that is geared to pushing the Philippines along the path of industrialization shall be adopted. This means a policy of limiting imports to the following:  (a) technology which the economy is incapable of creating at present and which can be improved later on by Filipino scientists and engineers; and (b) other essential items which cannot be sufficiently produced domestically for the meantime.

Article 6.  Adequate protection against dumping by foreign interests as well as incentives shall be provided to Filipino-owned industrial enterprises and agricultural producers.

Article 7.  The policy of promoting economic independence and industrial development by engaging in close economic relations and cooperation with neighboring countries in East Asia and other countries throughout the world and by taking advantage of the increasing competition among the major industrial capitalist countries shall be adopted.

Article 8.  Membership in international economic institutions such as the WTO and APEC which aim to protect the economic interests of the advanced capitalist countries shall be withdrawn.

Article 9.  A policy to diversify trade relations to break the country’s trade dependence on the United States and Japan and to enable it to effectively bargain for the best terms in the international market shall be adopted.

Article 10. The activities of foreign trading companies allowed to operate in the Philippines, particularly with regard to their policies towards workers shall be regulated.

Article 11.  The Parties shall make their respective representations and submit reports and recommendations to the UN Economic and Social Council, the International Labor Organizations and other pertinent agencies of the United Nations on economic, social and cultural matters within the scope of this Agreement.

 

Part XI.

FINAL PROVISIONS

Article 1.  This Agreement  shall be approved by the principals of the GRP and the NDFP within one month after signing and finalization by their negotiating panels and shall take full and immediate effect upon approval by the principals.

Article 2.  The Parties shall be bound by this Agreement to take the necessary unilateral steps to enable them to carry out any provision which entails a modification or amendment of their respective constitutions, policies and laws.

Article 3.  The Parties agree that,  irrespective of the course and outcome of the peace negotiations, the provisions of this Agreement that uphold the economic, social and cultural rights of the people shall remain in force and in effect.

Article 4.  The Parties agree on the  importance and urgency of approving this Agreement in order to address the social and economic roots of the prolonged armed conflict and to open the way to negotiations on political and constitutional reforms.

Article 5.  This Agreement shall be binding upon the GRP and the NDFP and their respective successors.  Any change in the form of the political structure, government and authority within the GRP shall not affect the validity and binding nature of this Agreement.

Article 6.  To enhance and strengthen the legal and moral force and effect of this Agreement,  the representatives of the governments hosting the formal negotiations as well as those of the UN Secretary General, the UN Economic and Social Council and the UN Commission on Human Rights shall sign this Agreement as witnesses upon the signing of the same by the negotiating panels of both Parties.

 

WITNESS, we sign this Agreement this day of ______________, ­____ at _________________