- GILBERT BAYORAN
Sugar planters’ federations are strongly opposing the call of Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno to allow industrial users to directly import sugar, as a concession to plans of increasing taxes on sugar sweetened beverages.
In a statement, Manuel Lamata, president of the United Sugar Producers Federation (Unifed) said they are “totally against the move of Diokno to liberalize importation in favor of a few industrial users”.
Lamata added that Diokno is bent only on raising taxes without thinking of its effects on the sugar farmers.
The National Federation of Sugarcane Planters, in a statement, also strongly opposed the direct sugar importation by manufacturers of sweetened beverages, stressing that it will destroy the livelihood of thousands of marginal sugarcane farmers.
“It will not result to lower prices of sweetened beverages, but will simply further enrich the industrial user companies,” NFSP president Enrique Rojas said.
Allowing manufacturers of sweetened beverages to directly import sugar will wreak havoc on the long-established government regulations over the sugar industry, Rojas stressed.
Under the present system, the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) regulates the importation of sugar and determines the volume to be imported after assessing the local industry’s capability to satisfy the country’s consumption demands.
Lamata sought the intervention of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who is also the concurrent secretary of the Department of Agriculture that has jurisdiction over SRA, to stop Diokno from doing so.
“Is Diokno prepared to give livelihood to these five million industry stakeholders?”, he asked, stressing that the Finance secretary should also think of the consumers or the general public, who will also be affected, as the industrial users will surely pass on the additional taxes to their consumers.
“Diokno is clearly anti-farmer,” Lamata said.
In a press briefing Monday, Diokno sees liberalizing or allowing manufacturers of sweetened beverages to directly import their sugar or sweetener requirements as a “reasonable compromise” for the government’s plan to increase duties and broaden the tax base for sweetened beverages.
The DOF plans to increase the beverage tax rate under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law to P12 per liter, regardless of the type of sweetener used, remove exemptions, and index the rate by four percent yearly./GB
