MANILA, Philippines -- The Senate would not be rushed into ratifying a controversial trade agreement with Japan that has been pending in the chamber since June last year, said Sen. Pia Cayetano.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Tuesday urged the Senate to make ratification of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) a priority when Congress resumes sessions on April 21.

“President Arroyo should not be pressuring the Senate to ratify JPEPA,” Cayetano said in a statement from Cape Town, South Africa, where she and six other senators are attending the Inter-Parliamentary Union general assembly.

Instead, Cayetano said, the President “should be castigating her own government panel for doing a lousy job in securing the best possible agreement for our people.”

“Anyone attending the hearings on JPEPA would have concluded the agreement has so many loopholes and the government panel failed miserably to secure terms favorable to Filipinos,” she said.

“I appreciate the efforts of Japan’s representatives to explain and assure us of their good intentions. But it is not Japan’s job to look out for our interests; that is the job of our negotiating panel. And they have failed to do that,” Cayetano added.

The Senate committees on foreign affairs and on trade and commerce wrapped up public hearings on JPEPA December of last year.

Besides being tilted in Japan’s favor, critics of JPEPA protested a provision allowing Japan to ship waste material to the Philippines.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, chair of the foreign affairs committee, had said that as a condition to ratification, she wanted a lengthy “side agreement” addressing the treaty’s loopholes.

Sen. Manuel Roxas II, chair of the trade and commerce committee, initially was not convinced the treaty would improve the country’s trade of goods and services with Japan by lowering tariffs.

But after the hearings, Roxas said he would endorse the treaty because the country stood to lose more if it did not enter into such an economic agreement which other countries in the region had already entered into with Japan.

Cayetano, however, insisted JPEPA’s ratification was not in the bag.

“We cannot be forced to accept a substandard agreement. It is our constitutional duty to scrutinize agreements like this and, if necessary, reject any agreement that does not meet the highest standards,” she said.