Trade Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual said the launch of the Strategic Trade Management Office (STMO) e-Licensing Platform is a significant stage in monitoring and controlling trade in strategic or military goods and dual-use items.
“Today’s launch of the STMO e-Licensing Platform is a significant stage in monitoring and controlling trade in the specified strategic goods,” the Department of Trade and Industry chief said during the official launch of the STMO e-licensing Platform on Monday.
Pascual also noted that with the launch of the said platform, “We aim to balance facilitating legitimate trade and maintaining international peace and security, and we want to trade in tools, while ensuring that these tools are not used as weapons.”
During the same event, Janice Sacedon-Dimayacyac, Director of the DTI’s Strategic Trade Management Office (DTI-STMO), presented the strategic goods, which are compiled under the National Strategic Goods List (NSGL).
In her presentation, Dimayacyac said strategic goods are “goods, software, technology that can be used in developing WMDs [weapons of mass destruction] and conventional arms.”
Based on the NGSL, which is contained in the implementing rules and regulations of Republic Act No. 10697 or the Strategic Trade Management Act (STMA) of 2015, military goods include guns, ammunition, missiles, armored vehicles, among others.
Meanwhile, per the NGSL, dual-use goods include drones/unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs), digital converters, machine tools, and chemicals. Dimayacyac said dual-use goods refer to items, software, and technology that have both civil and military applications or end-use.
Pascual underscored the importance of “efficiently managing the trade of strategic goods and maintaining peace and security.”
Pascual added the management of WMDs, as well as other arms proliferation challenges are part of the Philippines’s obligation to the international community in pursuing peace and security.
“Confronting these challenges effectively is critical to protecting our country’s national security, foreign policy, international commitments, and most importantly, our people, our environment, and our allies. WMDs are weapons that can cause widespread damage to human and animal life, infrastructure, and the environment; they also evoke terror in the population. They can be nuclear and radiological, biological, or chemical,” Pascual explained.
The STMO was granted IT infrastructure support from the United States Defense Threat Reduction Agency (US DTRA), through the Cooperative Threat Reduction Agreement (CTRA), between the United States and the Philippines, DTI said.
The trade department noted that the e-Licensing Platform establishes a “one-stop shop” of all strategic trade-related services accessible 24/7 by all stakeholders.
With this, Pascual said, “It is expected that with this infrastructure, the awareness and compliance of industries with the STMA will significantly increase, which, in turn, will improve the Philippines’s implementation of its international obligations.”
For his part, Trade Undersecretary for Industry Development and Trade Policy Ceferino S. Rodolfo said, “With the use of technology, we are able to approach the twin objectives of ensuring security, while ensuring ease of doing business in a seamless and complementary or integrated manner.”
According to Pascual, the STMO is a bureau created under the administrative supervision of DTI. He noted the office services as the executive and technical agency in establishing a management system for the trade in strategic goods.
The STMO was established in 2017. The trade chief noted the key milestones of the office in July 2020, when it started implementing and accepting export authorization applications up to the end of that year, noting that the export value for strategic goods amounted to $3.6 million.
The following year or in 2021, Pascual said, there was a “big jump” when traded strategic goods climbed to $4.5 billion.