SENATE majority floor leader Juan Miguel Zubiri revealed that the fight of the sugar industry is not yet over.
“I spoke to the Department of Finance and there are undersecretaries who said that their next target is the sugar tax where they will tax the sugar per kilo. Our industry will die or it will be the nail that would close the coffin of the sugar industry,” Zubiri said.
He made the revelation in a press conference on Saturday, December 8 with Senators Joseph Victor Ejercito and Juan Edgardo Angara at the Stonehill Suites in Bacolod City.
“This is a heartfelt appeal to my fellow Negrenses as your spokesman and leader of the Sugar Bloc at the Senate to please help me that they will be re-elected in the Senate because the fight is not yet over,” Zubiri said.
He also emphasized their group at the Senate, called “Team Mates,” helped in the passage of higher excise tax on high fructose corn syrup which is almost double than the excise tax on sugar.
Their group includes him, Ejercito, Angara, Cynthia Villar, Nancy Binay, Joel Villanueva, Richard Gordon, Sherwin Gatchalian, and Loren Legarda.
“I need support. I will still be there at the Senate until the year 2022. If they cannot win in the May 13, 2019 elections, who would help me for the sugar industry when it comes to voting for the benefit of the sugar farmer? That's why I'm appealing to the Negrenses to support them. They have been tested and proven of their support for us,” Zubiri pointed out.
On the modernization of the sugar industry under the Sugarcane Industry Development Act, Ejercito said after four years that the law was passed, they will look into how the law is implemented especially in terms of modernization and mechanization as P2 billion fund is allocated every year for the industry. “We hope that the implementing agencies are implementing it,” he said.
Excise tax on fuels
Zubiri, meanwhile, said his stand on the excise tax on fuels is to wait for the inflation rate to go down by less than five percent before the additional P2 per liter on fuel products is implemented.
He said that President Rodrigo Duterte has already agreed after their group appealed for the suspension of the implementation of additional excise tax when fuel prices were still high.
He said that he also understand the stand of the finance managers of the President that the government's “Build, Build, Build” program will be in a quandary if the additional excise tax is not implemented where they could not be able to raise the P40 billion target from the additional excise tax.
“But maybe the government should implement it in the next two quarters,” he said.
Angara, for his part, said: “I think the President really follows the advice of his economic manager and I don't think he will follow the appeal of the senators. In January, the additional excise tax will be implemented. I want all the provisions of the law will be complied with like the unconditional cash transfer that's meant for 10 million beneficiaries to cushion the impact of the excise tax.”
“We hope during the first day of the implementation of the additional excise tax, the government should be ready to give unconditional cash transfer. Pantawid Pasada that was also promised,” he said.
“Less than 50 percent of the promised assistance has been given so in January, it should also be ready in addition to other safety nets under the law. To provide livelihood assistance, the sugar industry workers, for instance, that's part of the law also so let's make sure that it is implemented,” he added.