For voting against HFCS tax hike: Drilon, other senators get ire from sugar industry leaders

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines — Ilonggo Senator Franklin Drilon and some senators got the ire of sugar industry leaders for voting against an increase in the excise tax on imported high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

"Those senators, especially Drilon, should be exposed," said Manuel Lamata, president of the United Sugar Producers Federation of the Philippines.

The Senate bicameral committee recently voted 8-7 against increasing proposed taxes on HFCS, with Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III rendering the deciding vote, according to Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri, a staunch supporter of the local sugar industry.

The Senate bicameral committee has agreed on P6 per liter excise tax on SSB (sugar sweetened beverages) using sugar, and P12 per liter for HFCS, which being used by beverage firms in their products, to the detriment of the sugar industry.

Lamata said that Negros Occidental and the sugar industry had voted for Drilon and made him number one senator of the province. "Now when the sugar industry sought his help, he ( Drilon) turned his back on it and betrayed it," he said.

In the next election, Lamata said the sugar industry will campaign for the re-election of senators who voted for a higher tax on HFCS. "Definitely, we will do everything in our powers to have them re-elected."

Senators who voted for the increase in HFCS excise tax, aside from Zubiri and Pimentel, were Sonny Angara Jr., Jose Victor Ejercito, Sherwin Gatchalian, Panfilo Lacson, Joel Villanueva and Risa Hontiveros.

Zubiri, who did not name those senators who voted against the increase in HFCS excise tax, said it was a “close call and we nearly lost it.”

Enrique Rojas, president of the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters, said: “We will never forget them, during election time, they can always count on the sugar industry, that they will have our full support.”

Zubiri – in a press conference yesterday in Talisay City, Negros Occidental where he had a meeting with leaders of the sugar industry and Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. – said he does not think the senators who voted against higher tax on HFCS realized what its repercussions would have been on the sugar industry.

"This was one of the biggest fights of the sugar industry, because the entry of cheap imported HFCS would have killed the sugar industry," Zubiri said.

A lower tax on HFCS would have meant its entry into the country would have been free flowing and none of the sugar farmers would have survived it, prices would have dropped to P800  bag, he said.

Sugar industry leaders have been blaming the plummeting of sugar prices from as high  as P1,800 per 50 kilo bag in previous years to P1,200 in the past weeks, to undocumented entry of HFCS into the country and sugar smuggling.

This prompted Negros Occidental Representative Alfredo Benitez (3rd district) to file a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for a congressional inquiry on it. (FREEMAN)