The National Federation of Sugarcane Planters and labor groups on Thursday, Jan. 8, called on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s intervention to address the plummeting millgate sugar prices.
NFSP and the National Congress of Unions in the Sugar Industry of the Philippines (NACUSIP-TUCP), the Philippine Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial Workers Union (PACIWU), the Congress of Independent Organizations (CIO-UNI) and the NACUSIP Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Council said they support the Confederation of Sugar Producers Association’s (Confed) proposed measures to arrest the further decline of sugar and molasses prices.
“It has come to the point that sugarcane farmers are seriously considering abandoning sugarcane cultivation because of unprofitable millgate prices this crop year,” NFSP president Enrique Rojas said in his letter to the president.
On December 12, 2025, sugar prices dropped to a low of P2,103 per bag, the lowest in four years, while in the same period in 2024 the average sugar price was more than P2,500/bag, he said.
This crop year prices have been below production cost, and farmers are losing between P200 to P400 per bag of sugar they produce, Rojas said.
The Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) is pushing for a sugar export-import program, but majority of industry stakeholders do not believe SRA’s plan will truly address the problem, he said.
At best, SRA’s quick-fix might slightly lift sugar prices in the short term, but it will continue the same system of over-importation of sugar which primarily caused this prevailing problem of very low sugar prices in the first place, Rojas said.
Instead of SRA’s proposed export-import program, the NFSP proposes direct government buying of domestic sugar to be sold at a modest profit after the milling season ends, he said.
Rojas is calling for the classification of imported sugar into “C” (reserve) so that end-users will purchase domestic sugar and for the activation of the National Biofuels Board to address concerns on molasses supply and demand.
He is also calling for the creation of a sugar importation policy, which will spell out the guidelines on when and what volume to import, and the establishment of a Technical Working Group to work out the mechanics for the direct government sugar buying program.
NACUSIP-TUCP president Roland de la Cruz, PACIWU senior executive vice president Benjie de la Cruz, CIO-UNI secretary general Joseph Brian Perezs and NACUSIP ARB Council chairperson Elisama Gregorio in their letter to the president said “we have suffered long enough…we have waited far too long for a fair, honest, and well-intentioned solution”.
They said their groups represent the majority of organized laborers in sugar mills, sugar refineries, and sugar farms. Many of their members became landowners and sugar farmers by virtue of the agrarian reform program of the country, they said.
“Today, the sugar industry is dominated by small farms owned by agrarian reform beneficiaries. The same small farmers now comprise the majority members of farmers’ associations,” they pointed out.
“Because of this, when problems hit the sugar industry, our members are the first to be hit and the hardest hit.” they said.
They said they fully support the solutions recommended by Confed to the president as these are the only available and viable solutions presented to dampen the adverse effect of over-importation to the sugar industry stakeholders.
“We are in desperate need for immediate solutions. The workers and farmers are entertaining the idea of mounting coordinated but peaceful public protest against the slow and delayed help from the Department of Agriculture and the Sugar Regulatory Administration,” they said.*