BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL G. BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – Negros Occidental’s Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson supports the remaining board members of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), including Aurelio Gerardo Valderrama Jr., a Negrense.
Several high-level officials of the SRA, including its administrator Hermenegildo Serafica, resigned over the controversial Sugar Order No. 4 (SO4) that allows sugar importation.
According to Lacson, Valderrama was appointed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. while the other SRA directors were appointed by then president Rodrigo Duterte.
“I agree with him. He just has to wait for the decision of the President. I don’t think he should resign,” the governor said.
Valderrama, dubbed by the local media as the “last man standing” in the SRA, wrote the President on Aug. 15, explaining what happened during the issuance of SO4.
Earlier, Malacañang accepted the resignation of Administrator Serafica and board member Roland Beltran.
“I am at the disposal of the President. If he says I will resign, I will immediately do it,” Valderrama said.
Lacson said SO4 was a recommendation of the board and the right thing to do then was to present it to the Marcos for approval.
The governor, a sugar planter himself, said some planters did not say “they are against importation per se, only that it should not be raw sugar.”
Lacson also disagreed with the claims of some sectors that there is a looming sugar crisis.
“We should be guided by these questions: Is there a need to import? We can decide on that. What’s the volume we need? To make sure there is a shortage now or in the future. The timing of when these sugar should come in. When there is importation there’s a tendency for smuggling. That we have to watch,” he pointed out.
“With these three guidance, we will always be in a stable situation,” Lacson said./PN
