The Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) should enlighten sugar farmers on what is presently happening to the industry, the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters (NFSP) said.
“We always stick to the issues at hand. I suggest the SRA also stick to the issues we raised,” NFSP president Enrique Rojas said in his reply to SRA Administrator Pablo Luis Azcona’s earlier statement that the NFSP should get their facts straight on the current low sugar prices.
“We have always studied the available data, and we make our independent conclusions based on the available facts,” Rojas said.
“Perhaps the Sugar Regulatory Administrator is getting carried away by his emotions. As a government official, he should not be onion-skinned,” he added.
Their exchange of words continued over issues hounding the sugar industry.
Azcona earlier claimed how Rojas “can easily get swayed by others, particularly by one individual who probably has an even more clouded perception.”
For his defense, Rojas said the statement is discourteous.
“To insinuate that I am easily swayed or, worse, that I am somebody’s lackey is grossly disrespectful to my person and the NFSP,” Rojas said, adding that he never stated “anything attacking Azcona personally.”
“I was already immersed in the sugar industry long before Paul Azcona was born. I was NFSP’s first vice president and executive officer for 28 years, and I have been NFSP president for 24 years,” Rojas said in a statement.
Earlier, the SRA took offense to NFSP’s statement, saying that the sugar agency’s no sugar importation declaration until the end of the harvest season was “misleading.”
“I hope NFSP will be able to substantiate their claims, as this kind of accusation shows how warped and distorted their state of mind is,” Azcona said in a statement.
Azcona assures sugar groups that there was no oversupply of sugar, as they carefully studied the figures that the Sugar Council used, revealing that as of October 20, the raw sugar production was down by 73.46 percent and the raw sugar stock was down by 31.26 percent.
Refined sugar production was also down by 97.77 percent, and refined sugar stocks declined by 37.23 percent, including local and imported, he said./WDJ