Peasant group calls for RP exit from Cairns Group

A peasant-based research and advocacy group renewed yesterday its call for the government to withdraw its membership from the Cairns Group.

The Philippine Peasant Institute (PPI) made the call after Australia, using what the group described as "unreasonable" quarantine standards, effectively blocked the entry of Philippine bananas. This according to PPI, "clearly constitute a de factor non-tariff barrier."

Cairns Group is an 18-member coalition of agricultural exporting countries headed by Australia. Its main thrust is to remove all barriers to agricultural trade among its member-countries.

"We have always questioned our membership in the Cairns Group because of its espousal of fast-track agricultural liberalization especially in the light of our deteriorating trade balance and the damage such policies have caused on our domestic producers particularly our small farmers," said PPI executive director Omi Royandoyan.

"How can Australia justify the continued ban on Philippine bananas on the basis of purported phyto-sanitary risks when the same Philippine bananas are already being exported to countries like Japan and New Zealand? Australia has no business heading the Cairns Group if it cannot practice what it is so fervently preaches," he added.

The PPI likewise assailed the Arroyo administration’s "uncertain position" regarding the matter.

The group said the government could not keep ignoring the alleged regular violations of the country’s trading partners to the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules because "our insistence on playing by the books has been putting us at a serious disadvantage vis-à-vis other countries."