• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
While he is not opposing it, Negros Occidental Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson yesterday said the “volume and timing” should be taken into consideration with regard to the importation of sugar.
“We’re not against it, as long as it will avoid smuggling, and it is well studied as to the volume and timing when this imported sugar will come in,” Lacson, who is also a sugar planter, said.
The Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) is in the process of drafting a plan to import about 450,000 metric tons (MT) of refined sugar in response to the directive of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to maintain a two-month buffer stock of the commodity.
The United Sugar Producers Federation (UNIFED), one of the country’s biggest sugar blocs, issued a statement supporting the government’s plan to import refined sugar as a buffer stock.
UNIFED president Manuel Lamata hopes that it will arrest runaway retail prices of sugar
Negros Occidental Vice Governor Jeffrey Ferrer, the personal adviser of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr in Western Visayas, said the government sugar importation must be implemented during the milling off season.
“We have never been consulted about any sugar importation,” Ferrer said.
If there is a shortage, the SRA must present the figures and data and the president will decide.
As to the need for SRA and the sugar industry to consult the provincial government as Negros Occidental is the sugar capital of the Philippines, Lacson said “the sugar industry is a very mature industry already.”
“It really needs very little intervention from the government. It can stand on its own,” the governor said.
“The only time they will reach out to the government is when it feels that there is smuggled sugar coming in and importation. These are issues that the sugar industry and the government can work hand and hand,” Lacson pointed out.*
