The General Alliance of Workers Associations (GAWA) on Thursday, July 2, called for immediate and direct government intervention to halt a Red-Striped Soft-Scale Insect (RSSI) infestation before it completely paralyzes and collapses the country’s sugar industry.
GAWA Secretary General Wennie Sancho warned that further delay would worsen the crisis, noting that agricultural damage is already spreading rapidly across major sugar-producing regions, including Negros Occidental, South Cotabato, and Bukidnon.
The labor group sounded the alarm over the severe social cost of inaction, warning that the demise of the sector would bring widespread despair, uncertainty, and social disorder to the families who rely on it.
The organization emphasized that sugar is not a luxury but a vital livelihood for hundreds of thousands of workers, including those employed in downstream sectors like ethanol production and food manufacturing.
To combat the escalating threat, GAWA urged the Department of Agriculture and the Sugar Regulatory Administration to immediately form and deploy a dedicated RSSI Task Force.
The group proposed a hands-on containment strategy centered on sending specialized teams from farm to farm to deploy bio-control agents directly into the affected sugarcane fields.
In addition to agricultural intervention, GAWA called on Landbank to provide urgent financial relief by extending zero-interest calamity loans, input subsidies, and comprehensive crop insurance to affected farms. Sancho emphasized that the economic survival of the workforce hangs in the balance.
“Let us not wait for the biggest blow to fall, because it might be the last. The time to act is now. This is an urgent call to all stakeholders of the sugar industry nationwide to save the sugarcane, save the jobs, and save the nation”, he said.*
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