“The latest attempt to bargain away the rights of the peoples of the world.” This was how Rep. Mario “Mayong” Aguja, who represented the Akbayan Citizens’ Action Party and was a member of the Philippine delegation in the Hong Kong protests during the recently-concluded WTO Ministerial Meeting, described the last-minute deal brokered in the former Crown Colony.

“The so-called subsidy cuts are illusory in nature. This scheme involves a mere reclassification of the subsidies, not an abolition of them. The deal promises to scrap export subsidies, true, but what few people understand is that a vast majority of the subsidies are not classified as export subsidies, but rather, are made to fall under the Green Box, where they are under legal cover and can escape scrutiny,” further explains the Akbayan solon, who has a PhD in International Cooperation Studies and whose fields of discipline include International Economics and Development. “Tragically, in exchange for these hollow and meaningless promises, developing countries are now compelled to accept aggressive services market access, which would imperil fledgling domestic service enterprises.”

The Agreement purports to offer a “development package” to underdeveloped economies, but exacts from them backbreaking commitments in the WTO core issues of services, agriculture, and non-agricultural market access. In Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA), on the table are drastic cuts in non-agricultural tariffs, reduced flexibilities for developing countries as a result of the adoption of the Swiss Formula, and limitations on development options. This reduces drastically the policy space of third world countries to protect their interests.

“But these draconian provisions should come as no surprise,” explains Aguja. “After all, the WTO process itself is inherently undemocratic and wanting in transparency. The politics of the Green Room is still very much in place, wherein important deals are brokered not at plenary, but in small huddles of developed countries.”

However, it is not enough to merely examine the provisions of this current round of negotiations. Rather, it is imperative to view this within the larger picture of globalization and neo-liberalist politics; and as part of a sinister pattern of economic imperialism and sabotage. It is both anti-development and anti-human rights. It is anti-development because it curtails the development space of developing economies by exacting unwieldy concessions and pushing for greater market access in a manner as precipitate as it is unjust. It encourages corporate monopoly by pandering to the interests of multinational and transnational corporations while emasculating developing nations and leaving them very little room to negotiate and to muscle in their legitimate demands. It is anti-human rights in that it makes human rights subordinate to corporate agenda. Food security, the right to livelihood, the right to basic services and utilities are compromised in the name of liberalization. The globe, neo-liberalists like to say, is getting smaller. Ironically, the collapse of trade barriers and the expansion of economic access have only resulted in a schism that grows wider and wider by the day and a world more and more fractured by divisiveness and strife.

“And to add insult to injury,” Aguja laments, “they have been suppressing and quashing the voices of individuals who have risen up to tell the world the truth about globalization.” People’s protests in Hong Kong have not been met by a policy of maximum tolerance. Over 70 people have been injured and 900 people have been arrested. To date, those who have been arrested are still being detained and their rights are wantonly being violated. “On so many levels, the WTO is a social malaise,” opines Aguja.

Akbayan Citizens’ Action party strongly condemns the Hong Kong Ministerial Agreement. It is a clever sleight of hand that must be unmasked for the ploy that it is. We call for fair trade, not merely free trade. We continue to say no to WTO, no to corporate monopoly, no to neo-liberal globalization. It is only by saying no to these that we say yes to genuine development - a development that believes in multiple trajectories and avenues, a development rooted in empowerment rather than in subordination, a development that champions people over profit.