House leaders back importation of molasses to boost bioethanol industry

Former president and now Speaker Gloria MacapagalArroyo led lawmakers in pushing for the approval of a proposal to import molasses to make viable the local bioethanol industry that could help the country address the rising price of fuel.

Arroyo called for a joint oversight hearing with the Special Committee on Visayas Development and Committee on Energy on Friday as the growing bioethanol industry appealed to Congress and the government to support the bid of producers to import molasses to meet the country’s ethanol demand, particularly for fuel blending.

She saw the need to help the bioethanol industry following a visit to the San Carlos Bionergy Inc. in Negros Occidental, where officials

of SCBI raised their concerns on the situation of the industry.

Earlier, the Center for Alcohol Research and Development, an umbrella organization of distillers and bioethanol producers, appealed for government support to further improve the R30-billion bioethanol industry by allowing the importation of raw materials needed for production.

“[We] would like to help you and make the appropriate policy that will make a pioneering industry continue to exist. We’re very proud that we are the very first in Southeast Asia to adopt the bioethanol industry…In fact, one of the reasons why I visited you was that I was very happy to find out that you’re still around and you have expanded,” Arroyo said during the joint oversight hearing.

Lawmakers agreed that there was, indeed, a need to support the proposal of the producers which mainly called for the legalization of the importation of molasses to be converted to bioethanol and other products for export to enable them to be financially viable.

It was during her presidency that the country launched the biofuel industry, making the Philippines the first in the entire Southeast Asai to address the rising world prices of oil.

In 2006, she signed into law Republic Act No. 9367 or the “Biofuels Act of 2006,” which directed the use of biofuels to help lower dependence on crude oil and establishes the biofuels program.

Likewise, Engr. Rosemarie Gumera, Department Manager III of the Planning, Policy and Special Projects Department of the Sugar Regulatory Administration, said that their agency will not pose any objections to the proposal as long as the by-products are exported.