Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri is calling on the Sugar Regulatory Administration not to push through with a new importation program supposedly proposed by the administration, after already receiving two injunctions for Sugar Order No. 3 in February.
“Our local sugar farmers are again approaching our office, deeply concerned over talks of a new SRA proposal that would green light the importation of 350,000 metric tons of sugar into the country,” Zubiri said in a press release Thursday, April 7.
“Our courts have already landed on the side of our sugar farmers last February, so it’s disheartening that we are having the same conversation about importation again”, he said.
“Lest the SRA will be accused of this being a midnight deal bereft of propriety and due process. They should not allow this while our farmers are harvesting their crops during the harvest season”, Zubiri added.
In February, the Sagay City and Himamaylan City Regional Trial Courts issued separate preliminary injunctions against the importation of 200,000 metric tons of sugar under Sugar Order No. 3.
Sagay RTC Branch 73 Judge Reginald Fuentebella went so far as to say that the court recognizes “the grave and irreparable injury [that] will result from the implementation of SRA Sugar No. 3.”
Zubiri said he hopes these injunctions have prompted the SRA to reconsider the harm that their importation programs would inflict on local sugar farmers.
He called on Agriculture Secretary William Dar and SRA Administration Hermenegildo Serafica to take heed of the call of the local sugar sector, and of the courts.
“Let us be on the side of our farmers. The proposed 350,000 MT importation deal will put them at a gross disadvantage, and leave them completely unable to recover from the setbacks already imposed by the pandemic and the skyrocketing fertilizer prices,” he said.
“Instead of this importation program, let us focus on delivering much-needed assistance to our farmers, and let us find ways to boost local production not just of crops, but of fertilizers as well,” he said.*