TO ASSIST the increased requirements of the sugar industry, the colonial government organized the Philippine National Bank in 1916. Many of the sugar barons availed of the opportunity to engage in other businesses related to sugar thus raking more wealth that elevated them to the status of oligarchs.
When the Philippines was granted commonwealth status in 1934, sugar export became subject to limited quota instead of unlimited free trade. World War II created a sad and painful lull in the sugar industry because sugarcane planting and milling stopped. The quota was later extended under the Laurel-Langley Agreement to last beyond the date of Philippine independence in 1946 and to expire in 1974.
The agreement provided for a progressive reduction in the Philippine duty-free quota, and a gradual shift of sugar export to the competitive world market. World events in the 1960s shook the sugar market and the shaking was favorable to the Negros sugarcane planters who would become richer and famous.
The United States had its ugly relations with Cuba. Cuba would no longer send its sugar to America. To abort a sugar shortage, America granted the Philippines an increase in the sugar quota despite the provisions of the Laurel-Langley Agreement. Here in Negros, the happy “plantadores” launched a crash program to meet the demand.
Sugarcane cultivation paved the way for the uprooting of coconut palms and fruit-bearing trees and the rage was even extended to marginal forest lands, and even rice lands were converted to sugarcane fields. The sugarcane planters and the workers shared the blessings.
Martial Law was declared by President Ferdinand Marcos on September 21, 1972. There was upheaval in the sugar industry when the dictator anointed a Negrosanon ally to become a sugar czar who had authority over the life and death of the industry. After 1974, the Laurel-Langley Agreement expired and America abandoned its quota system.
After 60 years of enjoying the protected American market, the Philippines entered into the highly competitive world market. Negros was hit below the belt. Those who were on top of their wealth had to go down and tango with Marcos and his sugar czar. Trade policies affecting the industry were tangled with controversies. All these were documented in the film “Pureza” directed by J. Abello, a Negrosanon director who grew up in the sugar industry.
The Philippine Sugar Commission was created in 1978 to handle the trading policies on export and domestic markets. It decided to set up the National Sugar Trading Corporation (Nasutra). This was a subsidiary trading company to handle domestic and international trading. A handful of sugarcane planters close to Marcos joined politics to become political oligarchs.
The concept, that was applied to more than just the sugar industry, proved to be highly offensive and contributed to the undoing of the Marcos dictatorship. Since then, Negros and the sugar industry are not able to go back to their original form. The industry bleeds and the sugarcane workers are in the state of decomposition.
The fourth generation descendants of the hacendados do not even want to be called hacenderos. They admit they are sugarcane farmers. Many of them have leased their haciendas to their relatives and friends. The so-called “herederos” do not have the acumen of their great grandparents in running the hacienda. They do not even know the boundary of their property without the guidance of the overseer or “encargado”.
Their being a master or doctor in their chosen profession did not give them the skill to run a complicated hacienda system where underpaid workers just work without agreement or contract. Many Christian hacienderos do not even pay on time the Social Security System and Pag-ibig contributions of their workers. Many terminated workers do not receive their separation fee. They do not complain for fear that they will be driven like dumb cattle away from their houses.
The Department of Labor and Employment do not have courageous field inspectors to check on this. The only consolation of the workers is their SSS pension if they are lucky. August is “tiempo muerto”. We will hear more moaning and wailing of the undead hacienda workers. Can the government help?