Bacolod City – The Save the Sugar Industry Movement (SAVE-SIM) is calling for the abolition of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) and for charges to be filed against those responsible for the alleged “sugar fiasco” or corruption in the sugar industry.
SAVE-SIM lead convenor Wennie Sancho said he believes that it should be the sugar planters who should be filing charges against SRA officials, including those in the Department of Agriculture (DA).
Sancho, who earlier called on SRA to investigate the alleged corruption in the sugar industry, is now calling for its abolition, saying that it failed in its mandate to regulate and allocate the importation of sugar properly.
“For us, this is what we call abdication of duty of the SRA, because it surrendered its right to the DA. So, there will be no one to regulate sugar and therefore, imported sugar will be deregulated,” he said.
This means that there will be no imposition of restrictions and government regulations. This is what they call implementation of sugar import liberalization, he added.
Sancho said it is the sugar planters who will be at the losing end as the mill gate prices of sugar will go down, as a result. All of us will be affected because it is Negros that supplies 60 percent of the sugar in the country.
He questioned why the entry of 126 units of 24-foot containers of imported sugar from Thailand, which arrived in the port of Batangas six days before the issuance of Sugar Order No. 6, was not confiscated. And why were no charges filed against this technical smuggling? he asked.
Sancho said that since the delivery was not covered by Sugar Order No. 6, it was therefore illegal. (Chrysee Semillano via The Visayan Daily Star (TVDS), photo courtesy of TVDS)