By Lilybeth Ison/PNA
MANILA — It is the middlemen, traders and repackers who are jacking up the retail prices of sugar.
This was the outcry of farmers and producers as they face the proposed liberalization of sugar.
“As far as farm-gate price is concerned, it’s already down. We are selling at PHP1,400 per 50-kilo bag. That means you should get it for PHP28 a kilo at retail. But you get it for PHP60 a kilo in supermarket,” said Confederation of Sugar Producers Associations, Inc. (CONFED) Board Member Salvador Escalante in an interview.
Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri, on the other hand, said the price of sugar should not be that high since the farm gate price of raw sugar is not expensive.
“We really have to figure out how to tax the middlemen,” he said.
The senator noted that there is a need to bridge the gap between the producer and the consumer.
He cited that in South Korea and other countries, the produce goes directly to the cooperative markets, which sell it straight to the end-users.
“Either sell it to the end-users or to sell it to (supermarkets) like what Robinsons, S&R and other facilities, (which) they are doing now,” he said.
Currently, Zubiri said beverage giant Coca-Cola Philippines is “buying 100 percent cane sugar” after dropping the use of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as sweetener.
“They (Coca-Cola) are now doing measures to talk to all sugar federations to buy directly from them. That’s a good sign and that’s what we need to do,” he said.
Negros Occidental province is known to be the “sugar bowl” of the Philippines.
The sugar industry contributes an estimated PHP96 billion to the national economy from the sale of raw sugar, refined, molasses, and ethanol, and PHP5 billion in value-added tax payments on refined sugar.
It employs 720,000 workers in 28 sugar-producing provinces and in which 82,000 farmers, mostly agrarian reform beneficiaries and small farmers, are dependent on it for their livelihood.
Zubiri, who is a staunch advocate of the sugar industry, assured that the proposed liberalization of sugar industry won’t pass in the Senate.
“For as long as we are in the Senate, we assure the Negrenses and the 28 provinces that are producing sugar that we will not act on it,” he said.
Around 10 senators have expressed opposition to the proposed deregulation of sugar imports by signing a Senate resolution, urging the executive department not to pursue the planned liberalization of the sugar industry.
In the resolution, the senators said the move will adversely affect 84,000 farmers in 28 sugar-producing provinces and 720,000 industry workers affecting almost a million families or five million individuals.
Once sessions resume in July, Zubiri said the Senate would begin discussing the economic team’s push for liberalization, as well as the review of the Sugar Industry Development Act (SIDA).
The SIDA is supposed to get PHP2 billion a year and yet only about PHP500 million to PHP700 million are being released to help farmers.
“We have to see what is going wrong with its implementation and come up with proposals. What we need to do is come up with recommendations on how to stabilize prices that are affordable to people,” said Zubiri.
“What we can do is allow SRA (Sugar Regulatory Administration) to help the federation link them with direct buyers. What is happening right now is that traders manipulate the prices, they buy it so low and sell it with a huge profit,” he noted.
