• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Sugar industry stakeholders in Panay demanded an end to what they claimed is the over importation of sugar and molasses, as they also urged President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. intervene and resolve the current sugar crisis with immediate effect.
A manifesto signed by several sugar planters associations in Panay said the unregulated and excessive importation, coupled with absence of clear, transparent and institutionalized policies, has severely distorted the market and undermined farmer incomes.
To highlight their grave concern over low sugar and molasses prices, an estimated 1,000 sugar farmers and their families, spearheaded by the Jalasig Sugarcane Planters Association, along with other planters associations and sugar industry stakeholders in Panay, held a rally on Thursday at the public plaza of Passi City, in Iloilo.
“We are holding this rally to emphasize the severity of our plight. The persistently low mill-gate prices of sugar and molasses have resulted in widespread financial losses to us. These current price levels threaten the survival of farming households and the sustainability of the sugar industry,” Jalasig president Hernando Divinagracia Jr. said in a press statement.
The rally was a prelude to the public consultation scheduled on January 23 in Talisay City, Negros Occidental, which will jointly to be presided by Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, Senate committee chairman on Agriculture, and Representative Wilfrido Mark Enverga, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture and Food.
The manifesto called for an end to the annual over-importation of refined sugar and molasses, full transparency and consensus in importation decisions, and institutionalization of clear rules and regulations.
Farmers are already losing money, and further delays will result in deeper debt, farm abandonment, and long term damage to rural communities, it added.*
