AMID the sugar woes in the country, the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) is reiterating the policy of the state in regulating the release of imported sugar in the domestic market.
This was stressed in the Resolution No. 2019-22, which was unanimously approved by the board on Wednesday, January 30.
The resolution was signed by Agriculture Secretary and ex-officio chairperson Emmanuel Piñol, SRA Administrator Hermenegildo Serafica, and Sugar Board members Roland Beltran and Emilio Yulo III.
The resolution said it is in the national interest to regulate imported or foreign sugar because its influx will adversely affect the sugar industry which contributes an estimate of P96 billion to the national economy from the sale of raw sugar, refined sugar, molasses, and ethanol and P5 billion in value-added tax payments on refined sugar, which employs 720,000 workers in 20 sugar-producing provinces of the country and in which around 82,000 farmers - mostly agrarian reform beneficiaries and small farmers - are dependent for livelihood.
“Any policy that directly affects the sugar industry must go through a tedious and exhaustive consultation process with the stakeholders,” the resolution stressed.
The SRA resolution pointed out that Executive Order No. 18, “Creating the SRA” declares as the policy of the state to promote the growth and development of the sugar industry through greater and significant participation of the private sector, and to improve the working condition of laborers.
“To carry out such policy of the State, SRA is mandated to establish and maintain such balanced relation between production and requirement of sugar and such marketing conditions as will ensure stabilized prices at a level reasonably profitable to the producers and fair to consumers, and to enable SRA to realize its mandate, it is vested with powers to establish domestic, export, and reserve allocations and to institute, implement, and regulate an orderly system of quedanning, disposition, and withdrawals of various forms of sugar from warehouses,” it said.
It cited the Supreme Court ruling that the foregoing powers of SRA of providing for the classification of sugar as either “B” or domestic sugar or “C” or reserved sugar, it is not sugar importation that SRA is regulating but the release to the domestic or local market of the imported sugar.
“Such regulation is clearly intended to protect the national interest, as well as interests of local producers who may be adversely affected by the influx of foreign sugar, which the executive order evidently seeks to protect,” it pointed out.
“The regulatory authority of SRA over imported sugar was emphasized and strengthened in Republic Act 10659 or the Sugarcane Industry Development Act of 2015 where it is provided that the SRA, in the exercise of its regulatory authority, shall class' imported sugar according to its appropriate classification when imported at a time that domestic production is sufficient to meet domestic sugar requirements,” it said, adding the Bureau of Customs shall require importers or consignees to secure from the SRA the classification of the imported sugar prior to its release. (PR)