BIAZON MOVES TO SUSPEND IMPLEMENTATION OF BIOFUELS LAW
MANILA, MAY 1, 2008 (STAR) By Christina Mendez - Sen. Rodolfo Biazon has filed Senate Joint Resolution 11 calling for the suspension of the implementation of the Biofuels Act of 2006 (Republic Act 9367) until such time that the country has been assured of food security.“We need to assure ourselves, that we should first be self-sufficient in food,” Biazon said, citing reports from Philippine scientists from the Philippine Rice Research Institute that the country can be self-sufficient with the vast resources it has for rice production.
Biazon’s joint resolution calls for the suspension of the law until all the resources – such as lands, technology, organizational structures, marketing mechanisms, including legislative responses needed to ensure the formulation of a program to attain the country’s food self sufficiency – are in place.
“The food crisis or shortage that led to a sky rocketing of the prices globally has highlighted the food and fuel debates in the world. Food riots occurred in Burkina Fasso, Egypt, Mexico, Indonesia and in the case of Haiti, it caused the fall of the government,” Biazon said. “The present problem is not confined to the immediate problem of shortage and high prices of food, but more so in the coming years.”
He said there are indicators of the emergence of the Association of Rice Producing and Exporting Countries (ARPEC) behaving like the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
With the ARPEC, the world will also be helpless in the increase of prices of rice just like OPEC which controls the price of oil either through overproduction or underproduction, he claimed.
“The worst can be expected if ARPEC begins to adopt a similar strategy... when the major rice exporting countries such as Vietnam and Thailand announced that they would curb their rice exports by as much as 30 percent, the price of rice sky-rocketed to as much as 167 percent and in some instances even higher,” Biazon said. “Situations such as what we are facing today dictate that the country needs to achieve self-sufficiency in its requirement for rice and reduce our vulnerability to global food shortages in the future.”
Biazon noted that the Philippines consumes around 12 million metric tons of rice while it is only able to produce around 9.78 metric tons every year. Over the past two decades, the trend in importation of the basic staple has been increasing.
Biazon wants committee of the whole to ‘resuscitate’ baselines bill By Christina Mendez Thursday, May 1, 2008
In a bid to continue the discussions on the Baselines Bill, some senators are mulling to convene the Senate into a committee of the whole in order to “resuscitate” the bill which is pending before the committee on foreign relations chaired by Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago.
Sen. Rodolfo Biazon broached the idea after he moved before the plenary last Tuesday that the committee on national defense and security which he chairs be tasked as a secondary committee to tackle the Baselines Bill.
“Defining (the country’s) baselines will provide reference point which will be used as the basis for a definition of the extent of our inland waters, territorial seas, contiguous zones, exclusive economic zones, continental shelf and extended continental shelves,” said Biazon, who claimed he has conducted briefings with “experts” from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and other concerned agencies.
Biazon said he will “not object if there are proposals to bring the baselines issue” before the entire Senate constituting itself in as a committee of the whole citing sensitive national security concerns and the bill’s urgency.
Biazon said the chairpersons of the committees on economic affairs (Sen. Loren Legarda) and/or local government (Sen. Benigno Aquino III) may initiate the move to let the Senate convene into the committee of the whole to start the ball rolling on the baselines issue at the Senate.
The Senate last convened itself into the committee of the whole during the 13th Congress under Senate President Franklin Drilon when the Senate investigated the Northrail project.
The present bill aims to amend the baselines of the Philippine archipelago towards “harmonizing the interpretation and implementation” of our constitutional provisions on national territory and the existing laws – Republic Act 3046 as amended by RA 5446, and the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This will also reiterate the Philippines sovereignty over the Kalayaan Island Group.
Defining the country’s baselines will also clarify with certainty the exact areas of jurisdictions so that the Armed Forces of the Philippines, particularly the Philippine Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard, will be able to know the territorial boundaries of the country.
Apart from security, the delineation will also equip concerned agencies on implementing laws on customs, immigration, sanitary and protection of our economic interest such as fishing and mining.
SB number 2215 also recommends that the Kalayaan Group of Islands – as it was referred to in Presidential 1596 which created it as a municipality of Palawan and part of the Philippine territory – be treated as “regime of islands” to satisfy Article 21 of the UNCLOS.
“As signatories of the UNCLOS, it is our duty to comply with our international obligation as our Constitution provides that international law forms part of the law of the land. Amending our existing baseline law is not only a response to that commitment, more importantly it moves towards determining with finality which should be recognized as belonging to our national territory,” Biazon said.
Over the weekend, Santiago said the Baselines Bill is not the priority of her committee, prompting Sen. Edgardo Angara to question her motives by not acting immediately on the issue when the UNCLOS has set a deadline on May 2009 on the baselines for all countries.
Santiago reiterated in her letter to The STAR that the joint hearing of the Senate committees on foreign relations, national defense and security and finance last April 25 concluded that an academic and scientific study must first be conducted to address the current issues on national territory. – With Delon Porcalla, Christina Paguinto
Reported by: Sol Jose Vanzi
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