By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) Board Members Roland Beltran and Atty. Emilio ‘Dino’ Yulo recently asserted sugar wholesalers and retailers and manipulating prices, which has resulted in a rise in prices.

They claimed the Department of Trade and Industry must “do their job” and “monitor retail prices” after retail sugar at public markets and supermarkets were said to have breached the P60 per kilogram mark, which the SRA officials called “artificial.”

“Our warehouses are filled to the brim with sugar,” Beltran pointed out. “Any hike in sugar prices is artificial and being manipulated.”

“When the retail price of sugar goes beyond P60 per kilo, that should reflect double the existing mill gate price,” he added.

After earlier focusing their attention on traders, Yulo said wholesalers and retailers are next.

“If, indeed, there is a problem in the supply chain, it is definitely not coming from the producers and the millers,” he affirmed.

The SRA official went on to speculate the situation may be a “ploy in setting-up a scenario to justify liberalization of sugar importation.”/DGB, WDJ