No Sugar Import Liberalization – SRA

“It’s a blatant lie.”

This was the reaction of Sugar Regulatory Administrator Pablo Luis Azcona on the statement issued by Wennie Sancho of the Save the Sugar Industry Movement (SAVE-SIM) who claimed the sugar industry may collapse if government will implement the sugar import liberalization scheme policy.

Azcona said he does not know where Sancho is getting his information or misinformation from or “probably just a figment of his imagination.”

However, he cautioned Sancho and others to be more accurate with his/their statements as “others might construe it as true and these types of claims can agitate an already volatile market.”

“We, in SRA, have been prudent in our pronouncements as there are already so-called sugar leaders who have sabotaged our efforts to mitigate the drop in sugar prices. Yet, here is Sancho, who never even bothered to get accurate information from SRA, issuing negative statements that further fuel an already hurting sugar industry,” Azcona said.

The SRA chief said he does not want to dignify Sancho’s claims, however, some industry stakeholders “advised me to dispute his (Sancho) lies as these have been published in news media already without verification.”

Sancho made assertions regarding “unrestricted entry of imported and subsidized sugar.” My challenge to him is to provide us with the basis of these claims so we too in SRA may be informed of such, adding that SRA will welcome a comprehensive review if indeed there exists a sugar liberalization scheme.

“The last liberalization move was in 2016 or such, and the industry fought it squarely, so it did not happen. This is a thing of the past. It is clear this person thrives on misinformation and destabilization.”

Azcona said SRA, along with the Department of Agriculture have been conducting dialogue with sugar industry stakeholders, including the traders, on how they can help sugar planters who have suffered enough from the devastation of successive natural disasters and are suffering more because of the low sugar prices.

Unfortunately, Azcona admitted that it is “frustrating” that there are industry stakeholders who are bent on “sabotaging our efforts.” Worse, “these so-called sugar leaders are asking the President and the national government to start buying sugar to help the farmers and yet are quick to criticize government in a blink.”

The downtrend in sugar prices is not just caused by one factor. However, it is definitely not because of the claims of those who do not have anything good to say about government that we allowed over importation of sugar, Azcona said.

He also said that he welcomes the congressional inquiry on the matter so that “we can put on record what are the facts and the factors that may have been causing this low price of sugar because no matter how many dialogues and meetings we do with some sugar stakeholders, they are hard of hearing and accepting the facts other than their own.”* (PR)