Liberalized sugar importation contradicts Duterte’s food security goal

MANILA, Philippines — The planned liberalization of the sugar industry is a direct contradiction of the government’s thrust toward food security, sugar producers claimed as they gear up for a major opposition against the move.

The Confederation of Sugar Producers Association (CONFED) said stakeholders and some government leaders are now mobilizing to oppose Budget chief Benjamin Diokno’s proposal to open the sugar industry.

“Diokno’s move is contrary to the agenda of President Duterte who has put food security among its priority. How can you attain this if your economic managers are out to kill the country’s agriculture?” CONFED Negros-Panay chairman Raymond Montinola said.

Negros contributes the majority of the country’s total sugar output and has about 200,000 workers directly involved in the industry.

“If this pushes through, the immediate effect will be on the peace and order situation. It was in the ’80s when the sugar industry plunged and hunger was prevalent and when crime was at its highest,” he said.

Even the Sugar Regulatory Administration emphasized that liberalization will kill the local agriculture sector.

SRA board member for the planters side Emilio Yulo said Diokno is just listening to one sector, which is the food processing exporters who have been lobbying for open importation due to high cost of retail sugar in the market.

“We have been urging the Department of Trade and Industry to investigate where the problem is because the farmers are definitely not profiting from the high cost of sugar being sold at retail outlets,” he said.

Currently, the SRA and private sector are mobilizing industry stakeholders to mount a campaign opposing open sugar importation not only in Negros, but also in 20 other provinces that are part of the industry.

Opposition has already snowballed with Negros Occidental Governor Alfredo Marañon as among the first to issue condemnation, urging Negrenses to stand together in opposing the move.

The Negros Occidental Provincial Board and the Bacolod City Council also passed a resolution stressing that this move can lead to “the demise of the sugar industry which is the lifeblood of Negros” and that open importation will result to “economic dislocation and would in time foment widespread social unrest, putting to naught all social economic initiatives of the province.”

Latest data showed that local raw-sugar production went up by 11 percent to 688,364 metric tons (MT) as of end-2018.

The current production is higher than the 620,553 MT recorded in the same period in 2017. Sugar crop year starts every September and ends in August.

Based on data on sugar production for crop year 2018-2019, output in terms of 50-kilogram bags totalled to 13.8 million from 12.4 million in the comparative period.

The country’s raw-sugar demand was also 32 percent lower at 9.2 million MT from the 2017 level of 13.7 million MT.

The total sugarcanes milled during the period was 7.7 million MT, six percent higher, while refined sugar production increased 14 percent to 243,291 MT.

Following the importation a few months ago, mill gate price of the commodity has now dropped to the P1,600-level after breaching the P2,000 per 50-kilo mark.