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INTRODUCTIONTo speak for “fair trade” begs the question: What is fair trade?There are many definitions, perhaps as many as the numerous groups worldwide advocating it. Google “fair trade” on the Internet and you instantly get a long list of definitions.Factories lostI have my own definition of “fair trade.” It is based not on academic research and classroom discussions but on more than 50 years of directly experiencing UNFAIR TRADE - including the indescribable pain of helplessly watching all the factories I built up over several decades through backbreaking toil and self-sacrifice, em¬ploying more than 10,000 Filipino work¬ers, shut down one by one as cheap imports — courtesy of GLOBALIZATION and LIBERALIZATION - flooded the market, destroying not just my factories but virtu¬ally the nation’s entire, fledgling manufac¬turing sector, as well as the agricultural sector, equally bludgeoned by cheap food imports.Then, to add insult to injury, likewise helplessly watching as my erstwhile for¬eign principals/partners took over owner¬ship of the marketing and servicing com¬panies I and my talented Filipino team had built up over several decades.Again, they were able to legally mount the takeover because of our government’s support for globalization and liberalization. This was a classic example of the folk say¬ing “Iba ang nagtanim, iba ang kumain” (Others planted, others ate).My companies shouldered all the multi¬million investments, risks, and hard work during the early days when the brands of my foreign partners were still unknown in the Philippines.Several decades later, after we were able to build up said brands to number-one rank in the Philippine market, my former partners - using globalization and liberal¬ization as justification - conveniently took over my companies and harvested the fruits of our hard work.Equally painful, the same kind of in¬justice was done on many other Filipino companies by their respective foreign “partners.”It is a definition based on more than 50 years of slugging it out as an entrepre¬neur in local and foreign market arenas, against gigantic competitors with financial, technological, and logistical resources far superior to mine, with awesome political connections versus my complete absence of such.It is a definition based on my reflections on those profoundly difficult experiences, along with many readings and discussions on the subject.It is a definition based on the many tragic cases I have witnessed of small Fili¬pino entrepreneurs doing everything they could to make their businesses survive and prosper, only to be vanquished by global forces too large for them to handle.To my mind, the best way to start a clear definition of fair trade is by defining what it is NOT, in the same way that night defines day.What fair trade is not, its exact op¬posite, is the unholy duo of “free” trade GLOBALIZATION and LIBERALIZA¬TION being espoused and imposed on the entire world by the World Trade Organiza¬tion (WTO) through the so-called General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).As I have stated in several speeches, first of all, there is no such thing as “free trade.”Nothing in this world is free, least of all in trade. (MORE INSIDE)