Sugar import liberalization seen to benefit consumers

By Lilybeth Ison and Joann Villanueva

January 29, 2019, 7:45 pm

MANILA -- Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno on Monday said that while the planned liberalization of sugar imports would negatively affect local producers, this would benefit a greater number of consumers.

“There are more consumers than sugar producers,” Diokno said in an SMS message to the Philippine News Agency (PNA).

The plan to import around 200,000 metric tons of sugar seeks to address the elevated domestic inflation rate, whose upticks last year was caused by supply-side factors like a lack of supply of rice, meat and several agricultural products, he noted.

Diokno said sugar is next on the government’s list of agricultural products that will see a relaxation in import restrictions.

The administration already pushed for the deregulation of rice imports with the Rice Tariffication Bill, which is now up for President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s signature.

Monetary and non-monetary measures have been put in place in 2018 to address the rise of inflation, which, after peaking at 6.7 percent last September and October, has decelerated to 6 percent and 5.1 percent in the succeeding two months.

Government leaders, sugar farmers, millers, business groups, agrarian reform beneficiaries, sugar workers and other stakeholders have come together to oppose the proposed liberalization of sugar importation.

“Liberalization will kill Philippine agriculture,” said lawyer Emilio Yulo, Board Member of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), representing the planters, in a statement.

Yulo said food processing exporters have been lobbying for open importation due to the high cost of retail sugar in the market.

He, however, stressed they have been urging the Department of Trade and Industry to investigate where the problem lies because “the farmers are definitely not profiting from the high cost of sugar being sold at retail outlets.”

Sugar leaders in Negros Occidental are set to meet with Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol on Wednesday (January 30), hoping to get his support.

"We are confident of the support and we have heard Secretary Piñol fight for the rights of the small farmers as well as the other agriculture sector. So we hope that we get his support,” said Yulo.

Piñol, in an earlier interview, said issues involving the sugar industry will be discussed very soon.

"Any statement now would affect, any mention of any related sugar issues will affect the stocks of various sugar corporations. So, I will not talk regarding that issue (at the moment)," he said.

"My statement is that it's (liberalization of sugar imports) a very serious issue, it affects a huge industry, it affects huge investments, it affects thousands of farmers, and just like what we did in rice, we have to inform (all stakeholders), and the industry should go through a tedious and exhausted consultations," he stressed.

Raymond Montinola of the Confederation of Sugar Producers, for his part, said Negros alone has about 200,000 workers directly involved in the industry and open importation will be disastrous to the local economy.

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

They appealed for the President’s intervention to stop the liberalization of sugar imports.

Opposition has snowballed with Negros Occidental Gov. Alfredo Marañon 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.”

However, Diokno explained that “in arriving at any policy decision, policymakers should always be guided by the principle of 'what's the greatest good for the greatest number."

“The importation of sugar benefits consumers and hurt sugar producers. Hence, policymakers have to weigh the net gain of a policy decision -- total benefits by consumers vs. total loss of sugar producers,” he added. (PNA)

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