NACUSIP–TUCP Lauds NIR Leaders for Swift Action, Slams SRA Drone Failure as RSSI Ravages 61K Hectares

Urges direct cash aid to farmers

The National Congress of Unions in the Sugar Industry of the Philippines–Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (NACUSIP–TUCP), the nation’s largest federation of sugarcane plantation workers and mill laborers, strongly commended today (July 14) the local chief executives of the Negros Island Region (NIR) for deploying swift emergency interventions against the ravaging Red-striped soft scale insect (RSSI) infestation.

However, the labor vanguard simultaneously demanded that local governments bypass bureaucratic bottlenecks to release emergency calamity funds directly to small farmers and agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) facing severe economic devastation.

The federation highlighted the decisive action taken by regional leaders, specifically hailing Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson and the members of the Negros Occidental Sangguniang Panlalawigan for placing the whole province under a State of Calamity on June 30. This blanket, province-wide declaration bypassed localized fiscal limitations, immediately unlocking the Provincial Quick Response Fund to rush emergency containment measures.

According to reports from the Negros Occidental Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, the infestation has reached critical levels, devouring 61,242 hectares—or 32.18 percent—of the province’s 190,314.19 total hectares of sugarcane fields. Ultimately, this strategic move spared individual component cities and municipalities from exhausting their isolated budgets, rapidly mobilizing provincial resources to deploy biosecurity teams and distribute biological controls directly to the fields currently ravaged by the pest.

Concurrently, NACUSIP–TUCP lauded Governor Manuel Sagarbarria and the members of the Negros Oriental Sangguniang Panlalawigan for establishing a dedicated provincial task force backed by an initial ₱15 million allocation for immediate containment and farmer subsidies. Sagarbarria confirmed that Negros Oriental is expected to declare its own province-wide State of Calamity during the Sangguniang Panlalawigan’s regular session this week, following localized calamity declarations already enforced by the hard-hit sugar centers of Tanjay City and Bais City.

Gripped by Reinfestation, Catastrophic Damage

The labor group revealed that the magnitude of the agricultural crisis is far worse than initially estimated. Consolidated data from the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist and the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) confirmed that the RSSI infestation has reached critical levels in Negros Occidental alone, while unverified reports suggest total island-wide damage has breached the 70,000-hectare mark.

While the pest first entered Luzon in 2022 and caused major alarm in Negros in 2024, aggressive SRA spraying campaigns in mid-2025 only brought temporary relief. The current wave ripping through the Visayas and expanding into Mindanao is officially recognized as a severe, highly aggressive “reinfestation” driven by the recent El Niño climate cycle, with over 16,019 hectares explicitly classified as active, recurring hot zones.

SRA’s Drone, Aerial Spraying Deemed A Failure

NACUSIP–TUCP heavily criticized the containment strategies executed by the SRA, calling out the recorded failure of the agency’s highly publicized drone and aerial chemical-spraying campaigns.

“The reliance on drone technology and conventional aerial spraying has proven to be an expensive failure on the ground,” NACUSIP–TUCP National President Roland de la Cruz declared.

“Sugar workers and agricultural experts have observed that the RSSI pest fundamentally breeds and lives on the underside and lower parts of the sugarcane leaves. Overhead drone and aerial spraying merely coat the top canopy, allowing the chemical agents to wash off or evaporate without ever reaching the core of the infestation. This mistargeted approach has allowed the insects to simply migrate to adjacent untreated farms, rendering millions of pesos in tech-driven interventions utterly useless,” he explained.

Direct Cash, Subsidy Mobilization Demanded

Because localized biosecurity measures and technological frameworks have stalled, NACUSIP–TUCP emphasized that systemic gridlock must not block emergency relief. “Our ARBs, small planters, and farmworkers are facing absolute financial ruin as the RSSI infestation strips away their crop yields by up to 50 percent.

We cannot afford to let local emergency funds get tied up in bureaucratic red tape or wasted on ineffective aerial equipment,” de la Cruz stressed. “LGUs must transition to direct cash relief, immediate crop subsidies, and unhindered, manual hands-on pesticide distribution straight into the hands of the individuals working the soil.”

Curbing an Institutional Collapse

The demand comes on the heels of the federation’s fierce criticism of the SRA, whose management of the ₱206.4 million anti-RSSI fund over the last fiscal cycles was labeled by the union as a “catastrophic institutional failure” due to uncontained reinfestation.

NACUSIP–TUCP maintains that while national regulatory bodies face intense scrutiny and independent performance audits, local government executives represent the immediate shield protecting the region’s economy.

“The governors and the mayors of the Negros Island Region have stepped up where others faltered,” concluded de la Cruz. “Now, they must complete the defensive line. Put the relief funds directly where they matter most: in the pockets and fields of our displaced farmers and sugar workers.”* (NACUSIP-TUCP)