MANILA, Philippines -- Around a hundred members of environmentalist group marched on Monday from the Manila Film Center to the Senate in Pasay City to urge senators not to ratify the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).

Clad in black to express their mourning, members of the EcoWaste Coalition, braved the rains, carrying a white casket as they walked, accompanied by a band playing a dirge.

"We'd like to remind senators that they are duty-bound to protect all aspects of Philippine life from unjust treaties like JPEPA. We should not allow Japan to take us by a noose like a cow thinking it is being prepared for slaughter," said Manny Calonzo, president of the group.

“The JPEPA is an unjust and immoral treaty that spells death of the Philippine’s environment and economy,” said lawyer Richard Gutierrez, executive director of the Ban Toxics group, which is affiliated with EcoWaste.

EcoWaste and other environmentalist fear the JPEPA will turn the country into a dumping ground of toxic industrial waste from Japan, despite assurances from the Senate that Japan has signed a “side agreement” that commits it to respecting the country’s environmental laws.

The leftist Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya, National Strength of the Fishers’ Movement in the Philippines), meanwhile, said the ratification of the JPEPA would kill the local tuna industry, on which 180,000 fishermen and their families depend.

The fisherfolk group said the trade pact would also turn the country into a “dumping site” of second-hand Japanese ships, like the ill-fated MV Princess of the Stars.

Gutierrez called on the Senate to the JPEPA treaty and renegotiate for better terms that would protect the country’s social rights and environment, stressing that they are not opposing economic trade with Japan, only “immoral and bad agreements” that pose a threat to the country.

“Japan will follow its self-interest regardless of a side-agreement,” Gutierrez said, adding that their group has received reports Japan has allegedly undertaken both legal and illegal trading of toxic chemicals with India, Thailand, and other countries in Southeast Asia.

Saying the government cannot even control garbage disposal in the country, Gutierrez said there is no guarantee Japan will not import toxic wastes once the JPEPA is ratified and in effect.

He said that over the past decades, the Philippines has welcomed Japanese waste products disguised as “surplus” or recyclable items, like television sets.

He also worried that the government may not be able to summon the political will to enforce environmental laws because of the “economic clout” wielded by Japan, the Philippines’ biggest trading partner.

Beau Baconguis of Greenpeace Southeast Asia said the “majority of our senators have expressed that they have reservations about this treaty -- even they cannot deny that JPEPA is unjust, unconstitutional, and heavily biased towards Japan’s interests at the expense of Philippine sovereignty, economy, and environment.”

She added that the Senate ratification of the JPEPA, “with full knowledge of its terrible flaws,” would mean the death of the Philippines’ “dignity and aspirations as a nation.”

In a statement Monday, Pamalakaya chairman Fernando Hicap said: “With the increase in the supply of tuna produced by Japanese factory ships and their shipment to Japan and other countries, the local tuna producers and small tuna fishermen would be at their mercy by way of depressed prices.”

He said the local tuna industry generates some P18 billion.

As for used Japanese ships, Hicap said, “It is now a fact…as admitted by [the] owners of Sulpicio Lines, that [the] MV Princess of the Stars was acquired as a second-hand passenger and cargo ship for $5 million.”

The passenger ferry, with more than 800 passengers and crew, capsized and sank off Romblon province after sailing into the path of typhoon Frank (international codename: Fengshen) on June 21.

Hicap blamed President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for failing to address what he called the proliferation of second-hand Japanese vessels sold to local businessmen.