A question of cola

Let me say straightaway that I am not endorsing any soda, or the intake of sugared beverages, especially to the extreme that some “addicts” have taken it such that they drink only soda and nothing else. I will always recommend a nice refreshing glass of water, a cup of tea or, in the absence of good tea, a cup of silver tea, a.k.a. hot water, especially after a fine meal.

But I write about Coca-Cola with a touch of nostalgia. As a kid, getting a CocaCola – in that iconic glass bottle that was the standard of a sexy female body – was a rare treat, like at grandma’s birthday lauriat or on an especially hot summer day. Coke wasn’t a fixture in our cupboard; when needed (as when visitors came acalling) it was bought from the sari-sari store down the street.

As I got older and dietary/beverage restrictions were not as stringent, my Mom and I would sometimes share a Coke (actually, she took less than a third) for no other reason than that the fancy took us. And there are certain food that just go better with Coke – pizza, for example (even the non-Coke drinkers in our office succumb to a glass of Coke with pizza).

So we welcomed a visit to our office the other week by the folks of Coca-Cola Philippines and their bottling partner Coca-Cola FEMSA Philippines, a visit sparked by – claims of friendship and goodwill aside – the controversy over the use of imported high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to the detriment, critics claim, of the local sugar industry (there were rallies and calls for a boycott). Together with their PR people came two lawyers, all of them adept at the art of answering questions without really answering them.

On the pressing issue of the HFCS, the lawyers – Adel Tamano and Juan Lorenzo Tañada, snappy in their dark suits and white shirts, sans tie, that is the current preferred power outfit – revealed that they had just come from a meeting and impromptu press briefing at the Department of Agriculture, where the secretary announced a six-month suspension of an order stopping all imports of HFCS, during which time all stakeholders would get together to try and hammer out a win-win solution.

The lawyers explained that the order issued by the Sugar Regulatory Administration caught them quite by surprise, and that there were contractual obligations for orders of HFCS already placed for the whole year. The six-month hiatus would allow everyone to “make the necessary adjustments.”

They also pointed out that Coca-Cola has not abandoned using sugar. In fact, local sugar purchase this year will be significantly more (by some 50 percent) than last year, and sugar requirement in 2018 is estimated to be 10 percent more than this year’s total. About 40 percent of local sugar production goes to the beverage industry, and Coke – with 18 brands from carbonated drinks to juices to iced teas and more – is definitely a major consumer.