• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The National Congress of Unions in the Sugar Industry of the Philippines (NACUSIP) yesterday demanded the removal of all members of the Sugar Regulatory Administration board, claiming that they abandoned the very people they swore to defend.
The call was made by NACUSIP President Roland dela Cruz during the congressional inquiry on the state of the sugar industry, which was presided by Representative Mark Enverga, House committee chairman on Agriculture, and held at the People’s Hall of the House of Representatives, and attended by Negros solons, including Representatives Javier Miguel Benitez, Emilio Bernardino Yulo, Mercedes Alvares, and Abang Lingkod party-list Rep. Manuel Frederick Ko.
In a statement he read during the inquiry, Dela Cruz alleged that the term of SRA chief Pablo Luis Azcona, Planters Representative David Andrew Sanson and Millers Representative Ma. Mitzi Mangwag has been marked by record-low farm gate prices, disastrous importation policies, secrecy and absence of transparency in crafting sugar orders and a blatant disregard for small planters and agrarian reform beneficiaries.
“We demand their immediate removal and insist on true champions of the oppressed – leaders with backbones, integrity, and heart to fight the marginalized,” de la Cruz said.
He further claimed that the collapse of the sugar industry is not an accident, but a direct result of reckless over importation, unregulated entry of molasses, and indifference to the suffering of the real stewards of the land, stressing that the plummeting mill gate prices of sugar are a death sentence of small farmers and agrarian reform beneficiaries who are being forced to harvest early, sell at a loss, and drown in debt just to survive.
By attending the congressional hearing, de la Cruz said they come not with a hat in the hand, but a demand for genuine justice. “We will not be silenced, we will not allow our future to be decided in the back room elitist talks by those who profit from our misery.”
NACUSIP also called for full disclosure and publish the Sugar Board minutes, especially the Sugar Order No. 8, claiming that the Sugar Board has operated like a secretive club, hiding its decisions from the very people whose lives it controls, noting also that the SRA and Department of Agriculture fell on deaf on their request for a copy of the minutes of their meeting, in relation to Sugar Order Numbers 8,2 and 3 of 2026.
The labor group also reiterated its demand for the government to urgently implement a Sustainable Sugar Buying Program that guarantees a fair and stable floor price of the produced sugar, and immediate release of Emergency Cash Assistance to all ARB farmers in distress.
They called for amendments to the SRA Charter (E.O. No. 18) stressing that it is outdated and continues to serve the interests of a select few, inclusion of representatives for ARBs, sugar field and mill workers, and demanded an immediate, unconditional one year moratorium on all penalties and interests for loans from the Land Bank of the Philippines for ARBs and cooperatives.
Dela Cruz also called on the lawmakers to stand with them, investigate the prioritization of imports over the ARBs and small farmers’ hard-earned harvests.*
