Sancho: DBM proposal will kill over 300,000 jobs

By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Local labor group, the General Alliance of Workers Association (GAWA), yesterday signed a manifesto voicing opposition to the proposal by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to liberalize sugar importation.

GAWA Secretary-General Wennie Sancho said they are deeply concerned and alarmed over the proposal as “it is detrimental to the interest of the workers in the sugar industry.”

Sancho said their manifesto is an omnibus declaration of their strong opposition against the deregulation of imported sugar and warned irreparable damage could be brought to the sugar industry, which would also bring economic catastrophe to Negros Occidental.

Sancho said around 300,000 sugar and mill workers will lose their jobs due to the proposal; while small and medium sugar growers, who are still dependent on the industry, could be forced to sell or abandon their lands.

Earlier, Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) Board Member Atty. Emilio ‘Dino’ Yulo III claimed, without intervention from President Rodrigo Duterte on the proposed deregulation of sugar importation, the local sugar industry would die.

“[The] experience of Negros will show, during the 80s, when sugar prices went down to precarious levels, it affected the socio-political situation in the province,” he stated.

The SRA official went on to reiterate an assertion from an earlier joint statement, saying, such a move would “foment social unrest.”

Yulo speculated beverage and food companies are lobbying for open sugar importation./DGB, WDJ