THE Bacolod City Council opposed the proposed liberalization of the sugar industry, as they appealed to President Rodrigo Duterte and government agencies not to push through with the said policy.
As this developed, Negros Occidental-based group General Alliance of Workers Associations (Gawa) issued a manifesto condemning the plan of the government to liberalize sugar importation in the country.
Acting Bacolod City Vice Mayor Caesar Distrito said on Friday, January 25, they are appealing to President Duterte, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the National Economic Development Authority, the Department of Finance, the Sugar Regulatory Administration, and the Department of Agriculture not to push through with the policy as this will be “detrimental to the sugar industry,” considered the prime source of income of thousands of farmers, producers, millers, and retailers in this side of the country.
“We have to give our support to our sugar industry. The liberation of the sugar industry is a death to Negros, Cagayan and Mindanao, the areas that are sugar dependent,” he said.
Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno earlier announced that the national government is seeking to liberalize the importation of the sugar industry.
The rationale for the liberalization is that the importation of sugar pushes down the price of the commodity and improves the competitiveness of the food export industry of the country, according to DBM.
“The stakeholders, particularly here in Negros Occidental and Bacolod City, were alarmed about the pronouncement of the policy since this will result to the sudden and ultimate downfall of the sugar industry,” Distrito said.
He said the price of imported sugar is much cheaper than the sugar produced in the country, thus, opening importation could mean large influx of imported sugar which might be favored more by consumers rather than our own.
Distrito pointed out that the liberalization of the sugar industry is not the final and only solution to buffer the effects of inflation because doing so could even result to much more problems given that the farmers, producers, the consumers, and their families will be severely affected if it will push through.
“To pursue such plans will also result to the collapse, not just of the sugar industry, but also of local economies dependent on sugar such as Negros Occidental and Oriental, and will further pull down their people to much deeper poverty,” Distrito said.
He said that instead of looking only at free importation of sugar, the government should make a concrete plan on going after the greedy traders and retailers who are abusive of the situation since it is not the farm gate price of sugar that remained high but its retail price.
“There are even retailers that sell sugar at a higher price even though the price in other retail stores have already gone down,” he added.
Manifesto
Wennie Sancho, secretary-general of Gawa, said on Friday, the labor group, through a workers manifesto, is reiterating its deep concern on the alarming issue confronting the sugar industry.
Sancho said the liberalization scheme for sugar by the government is detrimental to the interest of the workers, particularly in the sugar industry.
“This workers manifesto is an omnibus declaration of our strong opposition against the deregulation of imported sugar,” he said, adding that the irreparable damage that could be brought by sugar import liberalization.
Diokno earlier said that sugar in the Philippines is very expensive compared with global prices so they plan to deregulate the industry probably this year.
The Budget chief said there is a need to relax the rules on importation that puts pressure on the domestic economy to compete with the rest of the world.
The workers' manifesto, however, stated that if not averted would be an economic catastrophe and disaster to the province.
It said about 300,000 sugar and mill workers will lose their jobs. Small and medium sugar growers who are dependent on sugar alone would be forced to sell or abandon their lands.
The possible collapse of the sugar industry will have a domino effect on the economic activities in big cities like Bacolod, the manifesto added.
Sancho recalled that during the time when the sugar industry was down, Negros was in the limelight of social criticism where hungry farmworkers and malnourished children known as “Batang Negros” were on front pages of the newspapers.
“We do not want that poverty in Negros, dreadful as it is, to be repeated,” Sancho said, adding that uncertain return of business operations will be followed by unexpected closures of business establishments due to the negative business environment.
Consequently, unemployment will rise and the poor victims of a social malady because they will become the hostage in the cycle of poverty, he also said.
The manifesto further stated that it is a cycle of the economy that when people are down, expect that crimes will be rampant in the community.
There is already a warning that a social volcano may erupt if the sugar industry – the lifeblood of the province – will collapse due to massive and unrestricted sugar importation if the government pushes the liberal import dependent policy, it added.
Sancho said they are distributing copies of the manifesto to other labor groups in the province. It will be adopted by other labor leaders, he said.
Gawa, Sancho said, along with the National Congress and Unions in the Sugar Industry of the Philippines and Philippine Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Workers Union-Trade Union of Congress of the Philippines, among other groups will solidify their acts by simultaneously signing the manifesto next week.
“Gawa and its affiliate organizations could not take in conscience to witness the ultimate demise of the sugar industry that would surely wreak havoc to our economy and people,” Sancho added.
The push to oppose “sugar industry liberalization” has been gaining support from different sectors.
In fact, some 173 chairpersons of various agrarian reform cooperatives and agrarian reform beneficiaries organizations covering three districts in the province also signed a manifesto opposing the plan to allow unrestricted sugar importation.
The Save the Sugar Industry Movement earlier expressed alarm over the proposal amid worries that it may result in economic dislocation.
The same apprehensions were cited by the Provincial Board of Negros Occidental in a resolution it passed on Wednesday, January 23, opposing the liberalization of sugar importation.
Moreover, local sugar planters and producers are even calling on Duterte and other government officials and agencies to reconsider the government’s plan to deregulate importation of sugar.