UNIFED asks Marcos to stop sugar importation
By Dolly Yasa BACOLOD City – The United Sugar Producers Federation of the Philippines (UNIFED) appealed to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to stop the importation of 64,050 metric tons of sugar while sugar milling is at its peak. UNIFED President Manuel Lamata said on Wednesday that “we are at the peak of harvest and we have

By Staff Writer
By Dolly Yasa
BACOLOD City – The United Sugar Producers Federation of the Philippines (UNIFED) appealed to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to stop the importation of 64,050 metric tons of sugar while sugar milling is at its peak.
UNIFED President Manuel Lamata said on Wednesday that “we are at the peak of harvest and we have abundant stocks of raw and refined sugar, as such we see no need to import sugar at this time.”
“We are appealing to President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. to halt this importation of refined sugar through the minimum access volume mechanism until the results of a post-assessment of sugar stocks after the end of the milling season can be conducted,” Lamata added.
UNIFED made the appeal after Agriculture Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban released Memorandum Order 77 on Wednesday, stating that the President, who is the concurrent Agriculture Secretary, ordered the department to “take action and to stabilize sugar prices” after a 38-percent price increase in November.
In the memo, Panganiban ordered the immediate convening of the MAV Advisory Council and expediting the importation of 64,050 metric tons of refined sugar.
Lamata stressed that they are not against importation per se “but to do it now will be disastrous to our local sugar farmers.”
He added that in the past three weeks, “millgate prices of sugar have gone down and if this further goes down with the entry of imported sugar, the sugar farmers will be facing a double whammy.” (With a report from PNA)
Article Information
Comments (0)
LEAVE A REPLY
No comments yet
Be the first to share your thoughts!
Related Articles

‘GRID FIRST’: MORE Power turns Iloilo City into WV’s first fully SCADA-ready distribution network
Iloilo City has quietly achieved something no other distribution utility in Western Visayas or the Negros Island Region has managed: a power distribution network where substations can be operated entirely from a single control room, with no personnel stationed on the floor. MORE Electric and Power Corporation has rehabilitated four


