BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL G. BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – Is there sugar hoarding in Negros Occidental?
Following the raids of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) in Pampanga, Bulacan and Zambales, the United Sugar Producers Federation (UNIFED) is calling on the government to also check sugar warehouses and mills in Bacolod City and Negros Occidental.
Millers found hoarding sugar should be charged with economic sabotage and their sugar stocks should be confiscated, said UNIFED president Manuel Lamata.
The seized sacks of hoarded sugar in Luzon could just be the “tip of the iceberg”, Lamata said.
Hoarding to be the reason for the high price of sugar in the market, he added.
“The government should start the inventory in two big mills in Bukidnon. Authorities will be surprised to discover large volumes of sugar,” said Lamata.
The Price Act defines hoarding as “the undue accumulation by a person or combination of persons of any basic commodity beyond his or their normal inventory levels or the unreasonable limitation or refusal to dispose of, sell or distribute the stocks of any basic necessity of prime commodity to the general public or the unjustified taking out of any basic necessity or prime commodity from the channels of reproduction, trade, commerce and industry.”
Under the Price Act, there shall be prima facie evidence of hoarding when a person has stocks of any basic necessity or prime commodity 50 percent higher than his usual inventory and unreasonably limits, refuses or fails to sell the same to the general public at the time of discovery of the excess.
The UNIFED president also revealed that he was one of the sugar planters who urged President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. to raid the warehouses in Pampanga and Bulacan on Aug. 18.
BOC also seized a total of 7,000 metric tons of sugar at the Subic Port in Zambales.
It was later found out that the seized sacks of sugar in Zambales had “recycled import permits.”/PN
