Senate objects to proposed sugar liberalization

The Senate is appealing to the government not to liberalize the country’s sugar industry.

Members of the Upper Chamber unanimously approved Monday Senate Resolution No. 213 urging the Executive Department not to pursue the proposal of eco

nomic managers to deregulate sugar imports.

Twenty-two senators signed the measure initiated by Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri and Agriculture and Food Committee chair Sen. Cynthia Villar.

“The Senate is against the liberalization of the Sugar industry,” Zubiri, who has been vocal about his opposition on the proposed sugar liberalization, said in sponsoring the resolution.

The resolution aimed to protect the welfare of sugar farmers and industry workers in the more than 20 provinces that might be affected by the plan.

The Department of Finance had proposed to lift the quantitative restrictions on sugar importation due to the high local prices of the commodity compared to those in the world market, which was supposedly affecting the competitiveness of exported sugarcontaining food products.

But the Senate resolution said the “liberalization or deregulation of the sugar industry will not affect the competitiveness of sugar-containing food products for export because it is already a policy of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) to allow food exporters to openly import sugar without value-added tax or customs duties provided that the end product is exported and not sold locally.”

The SRA issues permits and determines how much sugar can be imported from other countries.

The Senate in its resolution added that a deregulated entry of sugar in the Philippines “will be disastrous to the sugar industry”, which contributed about P96 billion to the country’s gross domestic product last year.

Senators also noted that the Sugar Industry Development Act was passed in 2015 to help the sugarcane industry be competitive through improvement programs, equipment and infrastructure support, and financial assistance to farmers, among others.

“The SIDA of 2015 is barely four years into effect, and much of the programs and projects it envisions to implement for the development of the sugar industry are not yet fully realized, thus, any plan of liberalizing the sugar industry will be irrelevant and very untimely,” it stated.

The planned deregulation will also go against President Duterte’s thrust towards food security as this would affect the entire agriculture sector.

“The liberalization will tragically affect a lot of farmers and workers all over the country,” it said. (with a report from Madelaine B. Miraflor)