"No new permits will be issued until such time that the current stock is consumed," said Panganiban.
He said there are an estimated 11 million bags of onions being stored in temperature-controlled or refrigerated warehouses.
Panganiban’s suspension order was an offshoot of a recent meeting with local officials and the Union of Growers and Traders Onion of the Philippines in Nueva Ecija, the largest onion-growing province.
While the temporary ban on onion imports is expected to keep prices of locally-grown red onions more stable, Panganiban said it will also allow the government to keep better track of onions being smuggled into the country.
"The suspension will enable government to check onion smuggling. That would be an easier task because we will know that the practice (of smuggling) is continuing if onion prices still keep on going down," said Panganiban.
UGAT has been pressuring the DA to stop the entry of cheap imported red onion that has caused local onion prices to slide to below production costs.
Onion growers in Nueva Ecija said that producers are forced to sell at less than P5 per kilo which is 12 percent lower than the minimum price range required by farmers to recover their production inputs.
The Philippines has been importing onion since 1998, when the country experienced a shortage of the produce. Imported onions, coming mostly from China, have over the years, been displacing an estimated 15,000 hectares of farmland devoted to red creole farming in Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, Nueva Vizcaya, Ilocos, Visayas and Mindanao, with thousands more of onion farm laborers, losing their livelihood. — Rocel Felix