GMA urged to name new faces to head SRA, PCA

The Philippine sugar industry yesterday urged the Arroyo administration to place particular emphasis on the sector’s modernization, in a bid to provide it the much-needed safety net amidst unfair competition posed by other countries which dump sugar into the world market as well as those that continue to provide export subsidies.

The sector likewise lauded President Arroyo for placing anti-smuggling on top of her government’s agenda. During the past years, sugar farmers suffered due to the unabated smuggling of cheap imported sugar.

Newly appointed Agriculture Secretary Leonardo Montemayor said that they were given instructions by the President to strengthen anti-smuggling activities.

As this developed, an overwhelming majority of small sugar farmers and workers have called on the President to name as administrator of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) somebody who will set in motion the plans and programs that were drawn up late last year to revive and revitalize the sugar industry.

The labor sector, led by the National Congress of Unions in the Sugar Industry of the Philippines-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (NCUP-TUCP), has endorsed to the President the appointment of James C. Ledesma, the former chairman of the Philippine Sugar Research Institute (Philsurin), as the new SRA head.

NACUSIP, headed by Zoilo V. dela Cruz, has in its fold more than 90 percent organized labor in the industry. Labor now joins the Philippine Sugar Millers Association (PSMA), which accounts for 80 percent of the country’s total sugar produce, and the Confederation of Sugar Producers Associations (Confed), which groups an overwhelming majority of all sugar farmers, in endorsing Ledesma, to the post. Confed has 36 association-members scattered all over the country, including those in Batangas, Pampanga, Tarlac, Bicol, Bukidnon, Davao, Negros Occidental and Oriental, among others.

They said Ledesma fits the President’s preference for young and bright leaders who will head the government’s various agencies.

Negros Occidental Governor Rafael Coscolluela, as well as other key industry players including Jerry Rodriguez and Nicolas Ledesma, also threw their support behind Ledesma.

Ledesma is a farmer-leader who heads the Confed Visayas chapter, and a recognized leader in research and modernization. He has represented the country in numerous international meetings including the International Sugar Organization (ISO) seminar last November.