AS has always been the case since the foundations of our republic were laid down in 1935, the question of the Philippines entering into economic agreements with other nations has been fought with a maximum of rhetorical violence and a minimum of sober, much less constructive, consensus-building.

The debate on the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) was fundamentally a showdown between those suspicious of capitalism, foreign investments, and the government?s capacity to protect national interests, on one side; and those impatient with protectionism and eager to embrace opportunity and therefore skeptical of cautionary nationalism, on the other.

As it has generally been the case going back to the plebiscites that ratified the economic ordinances appended to the Constitution in 1939, and the Parity Amendment in 1947, Philippine presidents have been able to convince the electorate and the legislature to take the risk on greater cooperation with?including concessions to?the global economy and its biggest players. On the other hand, those mobilized against such proposals have suffered defeat.

As they have done for three generations, politicians engaged in posturing to see which way the political wind was blowing, and by so doing gauged the political risks, if any, of flouting the conventional protectionist wisdom. In the end the Philippine Senate in 2008 was no different from past legislatures: it dragged out the deliberation on the JPEPA for as long as the rhetorical battle proved useful in doing the political math.

But the moment the political strength of the contending parties could be clearly weighed, the Senate lost no time in putting matters to a vote. And obviously, in the eyes of the majority in the Senate that ratified the JPEPA, the time for debate was past and whatever safeguards could be wrung out of the Japanese had been achieved. The point being that overall, the JPEPA itself has proven more inviting than the risks that accompany an outright rejection of the treaty.

What the broad coalition of critics of the JPEPA achieved, then, was to help ratify the treaty. The intervention of the Senate helped force a reluctant executive department to extract concessions from the Japanese without significantly affecting the prospects for ratification of the treaty (the critics? aim was to secure senatorial rejection of the treaty), or the economic and political world-view that pushed Japan to negotiate the treaty and the Philippine government to accept it.

This only serves to underscore how isolated the hard-core critics of the JPEPA are from the political mainstream and even public opinion. The treaty would have achieved smooth sailing if it weren?t for the environmental questions raised. Which also indicates how mainstream environmentalism has become (and deservedly so). But other criticisms that mobilized opposition?increasing and facilitating Japanese investments, opening up Philippine markets and providing a slender chance for Filipinos to have access to the Japanese economy, and opening up a tiny niche for Filipinos to work in Japan?did not inspire either public understanding or public support.

A last-gasp opposition can still manifest itself before the courts; but the ultimate arbiter will be a Supreme Court that, many perceive, is firmly in the administration?s pocket.

As far as it goes, the ferocious opposition to JPEPA has helped clarify matters and stiffened what was a weak-kneed executive attitude during its negotiations with Japan. It bought some breathing room. Not much of a consolation. But if it hadn?t been for the fire-breathing rhetoric from critics, the Senate would have faced a done deal rushed to ratification.

It was not an agreement a self-respecting executive would have permitted to be signed; all the energy spent so far has been to provide a backbone to an executive tasked with standing up for the national interest. The treaty leaves much to the discretion?and ability?of bilateral panels to work out the details. If these panels operate outside the reach of public view and watch, we see no reason why the gains achieved by the Senate?s scrutiny won?t be dissipated, ignored, and abandoned altogether by an executive department who proved unable to identify, much less prevent, the loopholes in the original JPEPA.