BACOLOD City – The United Sugar Producers Federation of the Philippines (UNIFED) is appealing to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. not to allow the importation of 64,050 metric tons of sugar while the sugar milling season is at its peak.
The appeal was made following Memorandum Order No. 77, signed by Domingo Panganiban, senior undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA), to Jocelyn Salvador, director II, officer-in-charge, executive director, Minimum Access Volume (MAV) Secretariat, dated Dec. 20.
Panganiban cited in his memo: “Based on the latest summary inflation report, consumer price index (2018–100), released on Dec. 6, 2022, the annual inflation increment for sugars, confectionery, and desserts has reached 38.0 percent.”
He added that the President, as the DA secretary, is concerned with this high inflation and has ordered the department to stabilize sugar prices.
He directed Salvador to immediately convene the MAV Advisory Council and expedite the importation of 64,050 metric tons of refined sugar through the MAV mechanism.
Meanwhile, UNIFED president Manuel Lamata said, “We are at the peak of the harvest, and we have abundant stocks of raw and refined sugar; as such, we see no need to import sugar at this time.”
“We are appealing to the President to halt this importation of refined sugar through the minimum access volume mechanism until the results of a post-assessment of sugar stocks after the end of the milling season can be conducted,” Lamata added.
Lamata stressed they are not against importation per se, “but to do it now will be disastrous to our local sugar farmers.”
He added that in the past three weeks, “millgate prices of sugar have gone down, and if this further goes down due to the entry of imported sugar, sugar farmers will be facing a double whammy.”/PN
