Abrigo: Barter ports in the south

BARTER is the oldest system of commerce that can be traced back to 6000 B.C. in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). It is a swapping of goods or services with another person, usually a neighbor, for other goods and services in return, without money involved.

In ancient barter, the goods include foods, tea, spices, and weapons. But the most valuable good in barter is salt that Roman soldiers’ salaries were paid with it.

One of the most notable advantages in bartering is that the value of the good is widely flexible as our forefather’s favorite anecdote -a hectare of land swap to a cigar pipe (hunsoy).

Even when money was already invented, barter system is still improving to become more globally sophisticated with the advent of the cyberspace.

Barter trade system subsists in Zamboanga, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi (Zambasulta), with the neighboring Sabah, called backdoor to describe the underground economy since the ancient times. Malaysian goodies like chocolates, candies, wafers, sotanghon, white coffee, instant milk tea, textile products, bags and wallets are common even in Davao city.

When Ramos became president, the zone is no longer a southern backdoor for trading but a front door to our neighbors with the agreement with the EAGA. And the Bangsamoro government is to exercise their authority over barter.

On October 29, 2018 President Rodrigo Roa Duterte signed EO64 to create a Mindanao Barter Council to supervise, coordinate and harmonize policies, programs and activities on barter in the southern Philippines.

Barter Ports will also be established in Sulu (Jolo and Siasi) and in Bongao, Tawi-tawi to create more jobs and business opportunities. Through these ports, import duties of some goods from the ASEAN countries will be reduced if not totally be eliminated under the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement and the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA). In effect, imported goods through these ports will be cheaper in the market.

The government then expects to earn an estimated P1 billion in tariffs every year for some products, at the same time eases the Filipinos from the yearly escalating inflation.

abrigodann@gmail.com

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