Sugar’s bittersweet legacy (2)

On Aug. 24, 2022, the country’s association of sugar technologists held its 68th annual convention at the SMX Convention Center, Bacolod City. It was a timely event, considering the huge mess the country’s sugar industry is facing, in a place where sugar is known to have engendered a wealthy clique of “sugar barons” in the heart of Negros Occidental—Bacolod City. In that convention, the acting administrator of the embattled Sugar Regulatory Commission (SRA), David John Thaddeus Alba, was the opening session speaker. In his address, Alba stressed the need for SRA to go “full blast in utilizing the Sugar Industry Development Act fund by next year to make the Philippines globally competitive.”

Republic Act No. 10659, or the Sugar Industry Development Act, was signed into law on March 27, 2015, by the late President Benigno S. Aquino III. In its Declaration of Policy (Section 2), RA 10659 provides that it is the “… policy of the State to promote the competitiveness of the sugarcane industry and maximize the utilization of sugarcane resources, and improve the incomes of farmers and farm workers, through improved productivity, product diversification, job generation, and increased efficiency of sugar mills.”

The law also provides that the government “… shall a) establish productivity improvement programs; b) provide the needed infrastructure support; c) enhance research and development of other products derived from sugar, sugarcane, and their by-products; d) provide human development and extension services; and e) provide financial assistance to small farmers.”

RA 10659 also envisioned a holistic development program for all components of the sugar industry, from mandating the intensification of research and development programs on other alternative products of sugarcane, and sugar; as well as developing human resources of all those engaged in the industry, from the small farm workers and their children, providing for appropriate scholarship opportunities for them.

As I noted in my previous column, the sugar industry—for all the wealth it created for only a few families—has also caused grinding poverty for many of its farm workers, especially those paid measly hourly wages. The saddest part of this bittersweet legacy is the involvement of young children, starting from nine years old, as part of the farm labor in sugar plantations. This is documented in a short film, “Minsan lang sila Bata” (They are only children once) produced by the Ateneo de Manila University Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs and the Archdiocese of Manila Labor Center in 1996.

Written by Ditsi Carolino and co-directed by Sadhana Buxani, the almost one-hour documentary film showed riveting images and narratives of children employed in almost inhuman conditions, working late at night (in slaughterhouses) or under the blistering heat of the sun (in sugarcane fields). The children working in the sugarcane fields are stunted, their bodies and faces showing tell-tale signs of being malnourished. Many of them have stopped schooling altogether, and have probably added to the number of impoverished and least (formally) educated sectors of the Philippine population today.

RA 10659 was supposed to address this glaring gap between the impoverished planters and the wealthy land and sugar plantation owners and traders. Instead, we have a regulatory body of the industry that feeds into the interests of the wealthy sectors of the sugar industry—the land owners and the traders. Unfortunately, the latter has also largely promoted the control of the sugar industry to create artificial shortfalls, like what the country is facing now.

I wonder what SRA acting administrator Alba meant when he said he will aggressively push through the implementation of RA 10659 to make the Philippines globally competitive in the sugar industry. Becoming globally competitive might have unintended negative effects, especially for the smaller farm owners and impoverished farm workers.

But if we have President Marcos Jr. at the helm of the Department of Agriculture, he can push for more sustainable actions to address this sugar industry crisis, as well as the other huge problems the agriculture sector faces. But will he have enough political will to do it?

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