Now that Undersecretary Kristine Evangelista of the Department of Agriculture has already raised this issue let me just tell the President that he must act immediately and identify and arrest the people behind the so-called sugar cartel in the Philippines. Yes, several people are trying to create an artificial shortage of sugar–and just to warn these people, such acts satisfy the definition of economic sabotage.
Industry insiders say the Philippines requires more than 500,000 metric tons of sugar. Local sugar producers, however, have several tons in stock.
A more in-depth probe into this reveals that several sugar producers have tons of their stocks being forced out of the Philippines as exports to justify the importation of sugar from elsewhere.
There is something wrong with how our policy-makers at the Philippine Sugar Authority (PSA) look at the Philippine situation. Why force sugar producers to sell their sugar stocks at a loss elsewhere when these stocks should have been used to satisfy local demands, right?
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Junior should be well advised to change the classification of several local stocks so that these stocks would be used by local businesses. Othewise, we may see sugar prices go unreasonably and freakishly up. And this does not bode well for this administration.
We heard that a major beverage firm might stop operations because of sugar problems.
