Gov’t determining if there was hoarding, economic sabotage in ‘checked’ sugar warehouses —SRA

Philippine authorities are now determining if the recently inspected warehouses were used for hoarding sugar stocks and if it constitutes economic sabotage, a top official of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) said Saturday.

“We have to understand that hoarding is an offense subject to verification,” SRA Deputy Administrator Guillermo Tejida III said in a mix of English and Filipino during an interview on Dobol B TV.

“Even the Department of Trade and Industry would not categorically state that there is hoarding in these warehouses,”

Late this week, authorities led by operatives of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) conducted a series of inspections of warehouses in Pampanga and Bulacan as well as in Manila to check the inventories of imported sugar amid the supply issues hounding the country. 

The inspections were conducted following an order from Executive Secretary Victor Rodriguez, acting on a directive from President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., directing the BOC to exercise its visitorial powers to all customs bonded warehouses and check the inventory of imported agricultural products.

According to Rodriguez, his office is probing the importation of 300,000 metric tons of sugar being pushed by traders "who intend to use it as a 'cover' for them to release the sugar they had hoarded but couldn't release as this would depress prices."

Tejida said that “hoarding would be determined, for example, more than half of your storage capacity are not moving. This is effectively depriving the public of availing the product/ commodity such as sugar. There is clear, maybe, a high indication that there is hoarding.”

For the BOC’s part, he said that “hey are looking at the possibility of economic sabotage.”

The Palace, on Friday, said the inspection of warehouse will continue to determine if the sugar supply issues were “artificial.” 

Tejida also said that the inspected warehouses were not registered to operate warehouses to store sugar.

Sugar is on the spotlight following the controversial issuance of Sugar Order No. 4 (SO4), authorizing the importation of 300,000 metric tons of sugar which was later on deemed “illegal” as it was signed without the knowledge and expressed approval of the President, who as the concurrent secretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA) also sits as the chairman of the Sugar Board.

Signatories of the controversial order, including Agriculture Undersecretary Leocadio Sebastian, board member Atty. Roland Beltran, and Sugar Regulatory Administration administrator Hermenegildo Serafica, have quit from their posts.

Marcos earlier rejected the proposal to import 300,000 metric tons of sugar despite the increasing prices of the basic commodity due to supply constraints.

The DA earlier said there is a shortage of about 300,000 metric tons of sugar as local production was affected by the onslaught of Typhoon Odette late last year.

Latest data from the DA show that prices of refined sugar were recorded at P100.00 per kilogram, washed sugar at P75.00 per kilogram, and brown sugar at P70.00 per kilogram in Metro Manila as of August 12, 2022.

Gov't swift action lauded

A lawmaker on Saturday lauded the government’s move to resolve the sugar supply issues with the President concurrently leading as the DA's secretary.

In a news release from the Office of the Press Secretary, San Jose Del Monte City Lone District Representative Florida Robes said that the advantage of having the country’s chief executive personally running the DA has started to bear fruit following reports that prices of sugar have started to drop.

“The series of determined moves that the president initiated to address an impending sugar crisis turned the tables against agricultural smugglers and food hoarders. Meanwhile, the consumers and farmers are winning,” Robes, chairperson of the House Committee on Good Government, was quoted as saying in a Palace news release.

The lawmaker said Marcos’ directive for the inspection of food warehouses in the country has led to the discovery of stockpiled sugar, rice and other vital agricultural products.

She also lauded the President’s rejection of the Sugar Regulatory Administration's order to authorize the importation of some 300,000 metric tons of sugar. —KG/LBG, GMA News