Tag: Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno

NegOcc sugar planters ask PRRD to review liberalization plan

BACOLOD CITY — Sugar planters and producers in Negros Occidental are appealing to President Rodrigo R. Duterte to reconsider the government’s plan to liberalize or deregulate the import of sugar amid apprehensions it could cause social unrest.

Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) Board Member Emilio Yulo III, in a press conference here Thursday, said they are opposed to the pronouncement of Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno to liberalize the sugar industry.


Sugar Regulatory Administration Board Member Emilio Yulo III in a press conference in Bacolod City on Thursday (Jan. 24, 2019)
Photo by Erwin P. Nicavera

Yulo, representing the planters, said any unabated open importation will result in the death of the sugar industry.

Recalling the time in the 1980s, when sugar prices decreased to a precarious level, he said deregulation would also affect the socio-political situation, especially in Negros Occidental whose lifeblood is the sugar industry.

“I am making this statement not as an SRA official but as representative of sugar planters and producers,” Yulo said, adding that the industry has yet to reach a level of being competitive in terms of production efficiency thus, “now is not the time to liberalize.”

Earlier, Diokno said sugar in the Philippines is very expensive compared to global prices, and the government plans to deregulate or relax the industry within the year.

“You have to relax the rules on importation — that puts pressure on the domestic economy to compete with the rest of the world,” the budget secretary added.

Amid the woes hounding the sugar industry, leaders have recognized the need for a long-term plan.

Yulo said they are now lobbying with other industry stakeholders, individuals and groups sympathetic to the industry, and concerned agencies, such as the SRA and the Department of Agriculture.

Sugar producers are set to express their concerns to Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, also the chair of the Sugar Board, in a meeting on January 30.

“The government should hear out the industry before making any serious policy statement or proposing such a drastic measure,” Yulo said, adding that they suspect that industry users are also lobbying with policy makers for the realization of the liberalization plan.

As he dismissed claims that sugar importation is needed as prices of the commodity is high, the SRA official said it is not the farm gate or mill site prices of sugar that have remained high, but the retail prices of sugar.

In Negros Occidental, producers are selling their brown or raw sugar at PHP1,470 per 50-kg. bag.

Yulo said that in Metro Manila, refined sugar is sold at PHP60 to PHP62 per kg., which is equivalent to PHP3,000 per bag.

“So, who is making the killing?” he asked. (PNA)

Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1060034

NegOcc Provincial Board junks sugar industry liberalization

BACOLOD CITY — Negros Occidental’s Provincial Board has approved a resolution opposing the proposal to liberalize the sugar industry, as earlier announced by Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno.

The resolution, passed on Wednesday afternoon, stated that the move would open the floodgate to the unabated massive unregulated entry of sugar being dumped by Southeast Asian neighbors with surplus production.

“The proposal would spell the demise of the local sugar industry, which is the lifeblood of Negros Occidental,” stated the resolution that was sponsored by 3rd District Board Member Manuel Frederick Ko.

It also noted that liberalizing the sugar industry could lead to the economic dislocation of hundreds of thousands of stakeholders, particularly the agrarian reform beneficiaries, small farmers, and sugar farmworkers.

Such economic dislocation would in time foment widespread social unrest, putting to naught all social economic initiatives of the province, it added.

Negros Occidental is considered the Philippines’ sugar capital, producing about 60 percent of the country’s sugar output.

Ko said the exact gravity of the effects of the liberalization of sugar imports could not yet be determined, but they are sure it will have a bad impact on the industry and its people.

“Liberalizing the importation scheme is the same as liberalizing the entire sugar industry. We, Negrenses, should not allow this move,” he added.

Copies of the resolution will be submitted to concerned government agencies, particularly the Sugar Regulatory Administration and Department of Budget and Management.

Diokno had been reported as saying that sugar in the Philippines is very expensive compared to global prices. “We plan to deregulate or relax that industry,” he added.

The proposed deregulation of sugar importation is in line with President Rodrigo Duterte’s Administrative Order No. 13 issued in September last year, when inflation was at a nine-year high of 6.7 percent.
However, Ko said that unlike rice and fuel, sugar is not inflationary. “So, no to liberalization of the sugar industry, not now,” he added.

The Provincial Board’s move came after Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. said on Monday that the plan to deregulate government restrictions on imported sugar will be the death of the sugar industry. (PNA)

Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1059916