Malacañang on Thursday, August 11, explained why the government disallowed the importation of sugar despite its reportedly low supply in the country.
In a press briefing, Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles said importation calls for a balancing act as the country is approaching harvest season.
“It is a matter of a balancing act. We just imported last May. Now we have to determine if under importation supposedly to address the critical levels that are approaching at the end of the month will affect the harvest season which opens in September,” she said.
Angeles said the resolution of the Sugar Regulatory Board (SRB) for the importation of sugar should not have been issued with such haste as it appears to have been made.”
She said that it should have been taken into consideration if such importation will affect the harvest and the prices of local growers, adding that “in the absence of such a determination then we cannot issue a resolution for importation.”
The SRB Resolution No. 4, which authorized the importation of 300,000 metric tons of sugar on top of what had already been imported in May 2022, was signed on behalf of President Marcos and was later uploaded on the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) website. It was later taken down.
According to Angeles, a study must be conducted first before importing anything.
“n fact, it was the Executive Secretary who issued an instruction for them to create an importation plan, in such importation plan a determination has to be made about how this is going to affect the incoming harvest,” she said.
Angeles said the unauthorized signing of an order allowing the importation of sugar is now being probed by Malacañang.
She noted that issuing such a resolution is “illegal.”
Earlier, the SRA has warned that the country’s sugar supply may run out by August should the government prohibit the importation of sugar.
The SRA even noted that only one of the 13 refineries is operational as most of them stopped their operations in May.