THE Asociacion de Agricultores de La Carlota y Pontevedra Inc. (AALCPI), La Carlota Mill District Multi-Purpose Cooperative (LCMDMPC) and United Sugar Producers Federation (Unifed) have welcomed the scrapping of Sugar Order No. 4 (SO4) that sought to initially import 300,000 metric tons (MT) of sugar.
AACLPI and LCMDMPC General Manager David Alba, in a statement Friday, August 12, 2022, said that with the start of the milling season, the need to import additional sugar is ill advised.
“We are thankful that President Marcos vetoed the order as five mills in Negros Occidental already resumed operations,” Alba added.
He also said that data from the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) showed that there are four million bags of sugar that entered the country through the SO3 import program.
“However, this sugar is not being made available to the Juan De La Cruz since there are in the bodegas of the industrial users, the sector that is obviously given preferential treatment by SRA Administrator Hermenegildo Serafica,” Alba said.
Thus, in order to address the perceived sugar supply shortage in the country, we are recommending to President Marcos to reverse the SRA order and instead, release this sugar for the benefit of the consumers and retailers, he added.
In a separate statement, Unifed President Manuel Lamata also thanked the President for revoking SO4 and joined the call issued by Senator Imee Marcos to “revamp” the Department of Agriculture and SRA amid investigation into the alleged illegality of the recent sugar order.
“We are joining the call of Senator Marcos because it is very apparent already that these officials are not looking out for the interest of the industry,” Lamata said.
The fact that SO4 included importation of raw sugar when milling season has already started “indicates these people governing the very agency that is supposed to protect us, are actually out to destroy us,” Lamata added.
Unifed is the biggest sugar federation in the country while AALCPI is the biggest independent sugar association with a membership of 11,000 sugar farmers. (EPN with PR)