Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said Wednesday that sugar importation should only be the last resort and not the first option.
In his message at the opening of the 68th annual national convention of the Philsutech, or Philippine Sugar Technologists Association Inc., at SMX Convention Center in Bacolod City Wednesday, read by Negros Occidental 5th District Rep. Dino Yulo, Zubiri said the priority should always be “our own production, our own farmers, and our own food security”.
He said the planned importation of 300,000 metric tons at the start of the milling season “is simply too high, considering that there is still a very large balance from the old importation program…and about 120,000 MT languishing in the warehouses of industrial users.
“Some even have the gall to tell the public that they are short of premium refined sugar when the records of SRA show otherwise,” Zubiri stressed.
He noted at the start of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee investigation on the importation mess Tuesday that the Sugar Regulatory Administration “defaulted to importation as its primary solution to sugar problems to the detriment of almost 100,000 small and marginalized sugar farmers, 800,000 workers involved in local sugar production, and their four million dependents”.
He told Philsutech convention delegates, numbering to about 850, that the producers, 90 percent of whom are small and marginalized, have suffered enough due to the rising costs of fertilizer and farm inputs, of fuel, the pandemic, and the recent typhoon.
“As international market forces continue to affect the local sugar industry, we must really work hard to become more self-sustaining, so we can protect the producers and our consumers,” Zubiri said, adding there is need to work toward adaptability for a sustainable sugar industry.
He said that such is the theme of this year’s convention of Philsutech, and that he is glad it is at the forefront of the sugar sector, leading the way for industry innovations and making space for convergence and collaboration among stakeholders.
Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson, meanwhile, said that Philsutech has always been at the forefront of introducing innovative sugarcane farming technology and techniques.
“The sugar industry continues to face manifold challenges, and Philsutech intently and keenly finds ways to optimize the sugar production through science, technology, and economics,” Lacson said in his message.
Newly-designated acting SRA administrator David John Thaddeus Alba, who was also at the opening ceremony, along with Sugar Board Members Pablo Luis Azcona and Ma. Mitzi Mangwag, said their marching orders from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is to find ways to improve local production.
“We will be a working Sugar Board,” the three officials said in a press conference./CGC
