Despite reservations aired by some sectors, the approval of the Senate resolution making the country part of the regional comprehensive economic partnership (RCEP) augurs well for the archipelago’s economic stability, especially in developing the potentials of Mindanao.

Like the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA), approved in 1992, whose main objective is to “create a single market and an international production base; attract foreign direct investments; and. expand intra-ASEAN trade and investments,” the regional accord carries similar objects.

RCEP, though, is a much larger trade organization composed of 15 signatories, namely Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. The accord was signed on November 2020 in Hanoi, Vietnam, and required the ratification of at least six of 10 ASEAN countries and three of five non-ASEAN signatories.

Benefits drawn from the partnership vary from country to country, especially in the short term. But in the long term, with some adjustment allowed under the framework of the organization, the expectation is to create a healthy, borderless arrangements among stakeholders with an intent of becoming a critical player in the global trade.

RCEP reminds us of the earlier triangles that inspired the formation of the BIMP-EAGA in 1994. Under the concept, three players with distinct products or expertise agree to form a three-way covenant with an intent to complement each other’s commercial needs, including the promotion of specialties a player can offer for distribution or trade in another player’s domain.

But with the creation of the BIMP-EAGA, originally known as The Polygon during its initial stage of conceptualization given the multiple parties interested in the geopolitical borderless trade arrangement, the triangles, first introduced in Singapore, slowly lost its luster.

The RCEP, however, is a bigger pursuit given that it also includes five ‘outside’ industrialized countries, namely Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, Japan, and China.  The only nation in the ASEAN arrangement that can be equated with the five first-world nations is Singapore.

Creating RCEP, a trade society of neighboring states, creates a zone that involves an area of 22.54 million square kilometers, roughly 14.91% of the earth’s habitable surface, and 2.29 billion inhabitants, the equivalent of 29.09% of the world’s population.

Free trade, however, is not an entirely ‘free’ arrangement. Because actions such as this are formalized by the decisions politicians make and ratified by Congresses that host politicos, issues like human rights become belligerent subjects in the long run. Given that most of the nations that are ratifying the partnership are also signatories of other trade treaties, the clash of interests arising from the charters of other trade agreements can be prickly.

Free trade agreements, moreover, can become tools of protectionism. When a first-world country insists on putting its interest over the collective effort of the organization, an impasse is expected. This stalemate, if not resolved, can eventually results in the exit of a discontented members, which is reminiscent of British exit from the European Union.

The rise of discrepancy within the partnership is not unexpected. Each country has its own level of tolerance when it comes to trading. For instance, in agriculture, borderless trading can surely affect price stability for local produce when the imported items command lower prices in the absence of tariff and other exemptions.