All sugar roads lead to Cebu

Sugar roads normally lead to sugar mills. But starting Monday and Tuesday they all lead to the same destination — the Cebu International Convention at Waterfront Lahug in Cebu City.

Reports from the Philippine Sugar Technologists’ 52nd national convention indicate that some 600 delegates from sugar-producing areas of the country will flood Cebu City.

In the past, the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters’ meet was it. But since EDSA Uno, Philsutech’s has gradually become the sugar convention. The former NFSP has split into four federations of sugar producers — the NFSP, Unifed, PanayFed and the Confederation of Sugar Producers Association (Confed).

The Philippine Sugar Alliance or Sugar Alliance of the Philippines was organized during a Philsutech convention some four years ago. It is now composed of the four producers’ federations and the three groups of millers — the Philippine Sugar Millers Association (PSMA), the Association of Independent Millers (AIM), and another group.

But so far, they have failed to come up with their own convention. Instead, the various groups have found the Philsutech a common ground where they can discuss their respective problems and interests. Credit that to the Philsutech officials.

Philsutech president Javier Sagarbarria will be in Cebu City to welcome delegates starting Tuesday. Mrs. Haydee Villanueva-Rivera, the administrative officer, said there are indications that the delegates will reach 600, although some of them may also bring along their spouses and their family members.

On Wednesday, Aug. 17, Negros Occidental Gov. Joseph Marañon will preside over the ribbon-cutting ceremony that will formally open the exhibits. He will be assisted by Mrs. Christine Sagarbarria and Mrs. Elsa Concepcion.

But I am anticipating Thursday’s affair. I’d rather bare the details of the most important convention of sugarmen of the Philippines in my next column.

Now, though, there was a reported hitch in the opening ceremonies. Agriculture Secretary Domingo Panganiban, whom sugarmen have wanted to listen to about his programs, may not be able to make it. But Ding, as he is known to most farmers, is an old hand in the agriculture department. Still, that should have been a welcome change for him to renew acquaintances with old friends.

UI Bomb Threats

Last Monday, the University of Iloilo (UI) suspended classes the whole day after school authorities received four bomb threats.

There were actually four phone calls to the secretaries of four deans of the education, nursing, criminology and graduate school departments. Three of the callers were reportedly women.

The telephone threats turned out later to be hoaxes. Police believe the callers were students.

But experts from the Iloilo police and members of the bomb disposal unit, assisted by two dogs trained to sniff bombs, combed the UI for hours. They declared all was clear only late in the afternoon.

Iloilo City police director Norlito Bautista also deployed the police SWAT to the UI.

"We don’t ignore them. We need to give attention to telephone threats even if they later turn out not to be true," Bautista stressed.

Investigators also dismissed earlier speculations that the threats were aimed at former Guimaras governor Emily Relucio-Lopez. Emily was recently named Philippine ambassador to Rome.

Superintendent Wesley Barayuga of the Region 6 police operations center said they have no information what substantiated that suspicion. He disclosed that all information point to the possibility of student-pranksters behind the telephone calls.

But Iloilo mediamen learned that Mrs. Lopez has reported to the National Bureau of Investigation that she has been receiving threatening phone calls recently. An unidentified person was reportedly asking for P2 million to keep quiet about information that could prevent the approval of her appointment by the Commission on Appointments.

Emily stressed that she has been prepared for the threats and declared that she was not going to bow down to the extortion attempt.

A warning to would-be extortionists, the former governor is not a person to tangle with.

PNB Sale

The ears of many sugar producers have been tuned in to the position taken by the Planters Against Plunder of the Sugar Industry (PASPI) against the sale of the Philippine National Bank and the outcome of the conference with Finance Secretary Margarito "Gary" Teves, and BSP and PNB officials.

Rep. Monico Puentevella (Bacolod City), who arranged the dialogue, reported that it ended with PNB president Omar Mier promising to draw up proposed solutions that could once and for all close the never-ending problem of 20-year past due loans of sugar farmers.

Teves, Puentevella reported, had a keen grasp of the situation, especially the contention of the sugar producers that they had already been victimized once to the tune of millions of dollars of their sugar by Nasutra and Philsucom and must be restituted for what had been plundered from them.

The farmers were represented by Manny Lacson, Titos Abello and legal counsel Danny Hagad. The three maintained the history of how these sugar loans were obtained and the pivotal role of the Republic Planters Bank in the plunder.

Mier initially pointed out that the conditions of penalties and the reduction of interest to 12 percent spelled out in the Sugar Restitution Las were more than enough concessions to the sugar farmers.

Thus, they argued, it is now the obligation, morally and legally, of both the PNB and the Bangko Sentral to address this issue and to put up an affordable legal closure to the matter.

I could not attend the meeting. But Puentevella informed the conferees that he had deferred delivering a privilege speech on the issue to give all parties concerned the time to hammer out an agreeable plan.

In short, a dispassionate discussion of issues and positions often lead to peaceful solutions. That is a lesson for our squabbling political leaders.

In the next column, I’ll write about the big laughingstock of a scandal raging in Bacolod over the departure of coaches and officials of the local softball team to the US sans the team.