Panganiban says Marcos ordered to import sugar through ‘selected importers’

Agriculture Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban on Tuesday told a congressional hearing that President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. ordered the importation of sugar “through selected importers.”

Panganiban made the testimony during a Senate blue ribbon committee hearing into the February 9 importation of 260 20-foot containers of sugar from Thailand sans a sugar order.

Panganiban told the committee that Marcos called him after a Cabinet meeting and recommended importing sugar “immediately” because its contribution to the inflation rate is at 8.7%.

The DA official said he told Marcos about the need to import because the local producers can only provide 1.7 million metric tons and the country’s requirement is at 2.2 million metric tons -- thus, the need for additional 455,000 metric tons of sugar.

“On that basis, I called a meeting with the Sugar Regulatory Administration and threshed out this problem with them. Ang sabi ni Presidente ‘Lets do it ourselves muna.’ So two days after, he called again a meeting with me and several importers and he told the same thing. And told us that we really need to import at this point because baka tumaas pa ang inflation rate at tataas pa ang presyo sa public market,” Panganiban said.

According to Panganiban, Marcos called three or five importers in the meeting where he saw a certain Escaler and a certain Alvarado. He said after one hour of deliberations, Marcos agreed to the importation.

At this point, Senator Francis Tolentino, who chairs the committee, asked if the President’s statement means it would be done through the process.

In response, Panganiban said: “He (Marcos) said let’s import through selected importers of sugar.”

Panganiban also answered in the affirmative when pressed several times to confirm if the President really said to do the importation through selected importers.

Asked if Marcos mentioned specific importers to bring in sugar into the country, Panganiban said the President did not name any.

But he said that Marcos directed him “to limit the allocations to a few importers who are willing to shoulder warehousing, transportation and other related costs and to sell it at reasonable price to manage inflation.”

At the latter part of the questioning, Senator Risa Hontiveros showed a picture posted by Digicast Negros on its Facebook page on March 19, where Marcos and Panganiban were seen with Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romauldez, a certain Edwin Lee, Ian Alvarado, and the wife of a certain Michael Escaler.

According to Panganiban, the photo was taken after the meeting with Marcos.

Information from Hontiveros’ office said the photo where Marcos was seen with Panganiban and the sugar importers was taken on January 25, but the photo was only posted on Facebook on March 19.

Hontiveros has questioned three alleged “favored” sugar importers, saying they are set to gain billions of pesos from the importation.

GMA News Online has reached out to Malacañang for its comment, but it has yet to give one as of posting time. 

In her closing statement, Hontiveros said the question on the picking of the three sugar importers still stands.

“The question remains: Bakit po namili ng tatlo lang? Who handpicked these three importers and what are the reasons? Dahil kahit paano po ito tingnan, it is against competition, against equity, against the fair market, to exclude other importers and choose only three,” she said.

Hontiveros also noted that Panganiban has given the Senate panel “conflicting and sometimes unclear answers” which “speak for themselves.”

At the early part of the hearing, Panganiban said Marcos told him to “do the importation ourselves” but the Agriculture official retracted it after Hontiveros and Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III asked to confirm his statement.

“The policy is murky and lends itself to distrust. And we still need to understand how high this goes,” Hontiveros said.

The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee will conduct another hearing once resigned SRA Administrator David Thaddeus Alba and representatives from Edison Lee Marketing Corporation signify their intention to attend the investigation, according to Tolentino.—KBK, GMA Integrated News