Sugar smuggling hurting Bicol sugar industry

PILI, Camarines Sur (July 15, 2011) — Sugar planters in this province are now alarmed by the free fall of sugar prices in the local market due to rampant sugar smuggling.

The fall in prices has been noted since June this year and is allegedly caused by uncontrolled entry of smuggled sugar from Thailand that now floods the public markets particularly in Camarines Sur, said Rodel Divinagracia, president of the 300-member Bicol Sugar Planters Association (BISUPLA)

Divinagracia revealed on Wednesday (July 13) that the price of sugar in the locality has fallen to P1,300 pesos per bag from previous P2,300 per bag back in late 2010.

With the market saturated with imported sugar, 400 tons of locally produced sugar remain stocked at the Peñafrancia Sugar Mill (PENSUMIL) in Himaao, Pili. PENSUMIL is unable to sell the sugar particularly in the local market because the price has hit rock-bottom at P 1,200 per bag, Divinagrancia said.

PENSUMIL president lawyer William Enrile also bared that the Sugar Regulatory Administration has been remiss in curbing the recent occurrences of sugar smuggling. This is a very recent development and did not happen during the previous Arroyo administration, said Enrile.

According to Enrile, the local planters earlier planned to stage a rally as a show of sympathy with planters in Bacolod City when leading softdrink firms and juice manufacturers purchased large volume of cheaper imported sugar in lieu of locally produced sugar.

Divinagrancia claimed that this decline in sugar prices will ultimately take a toll on the financial viability of sugar planters in Camarines Sur who only temporarily got some breathing space due to the rise of the sugar price in 2008 and 2010.

In the 1970s, the local sugar industry enjoyed a boom because the Philippine National Bank, Land Bank of the Philippines and the Republic Planters Bank offered financing to planters.

This support from government banks is now non-existent and sugar planter are largely dependent on crop loans that are being provided by PENSUMIL.

Divinagracia added that even the Department of Agriculture has no program for sugar planters in Bicol.

Divinagracia explained that since the 1970s the sugar industry in Bicol has only existed in Camarines Sur province with about 6,000 hectares planted to sugar in the localities of Pili, Ocampo, Tigaon, Bula, Baao and Calabanga.

There are now 600 registered sugar planters in the province, including the members of the Camarines Sur Sugar Planters Association. (With reports from Sonny Sales)