By Nikolai Ordoña

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has approved the recommendation to sell confiscated smuggled sugar in Kadiwa stores, Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) board member and planters representative Pablo Luis Azcona announced on Monday, March 20. 

The Kadiwa program is a project by the Department of Agriculture (DA) that allows farmers to sell their produce directly to consumers at much lower prices.

Refined sugar ranged between PHP86-P110 per kilo, PHP82-P95 per kilo for washed sugar, and PHP85-P95 per kilo for brown sugar, based on monitoring from the DA. 

In January, the Bureau of Customs confiscated an estimated PHP261 million worth of sugar in Batangas after lacking the necessary legal documents. Later in March, another PHP86 million worth was seized in Subic after 30 container vans of sugar were misdeclared to contain slipper outsoles and rubber.

With this, SRA administrator David Alba made the proposal to sell the smuggled sugar to help bring down the retail prices of the commodity.

“At least 8,000 tons of sugar were confiscated in Batangas and recently at least P85 million worth or roughly 4,000 tons of sugar were seized in Subic. Good thing, we got a memo from Malacañang that the apprehended sugar will be donated to the DA for sale to the public by Kadiwa,” Azcona said.

With its sale, the cost of sugar in the market is expected to go down in 12 to 14 days, according to the DA and SRA.

Legality of approval

On Tuesday, Malacañang defended President Marcos Jr.’s decision, justifying that agricultural products seized due to illegal importation may be given to government agencies as “donation”, as stated in the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act.

According to the Presidential Communications Office (PCO), the President also ordered the DA and SRA to coordinate with the BOC to ensure that the sugar to be sold passes food safety standards.

Moreover, the PCO, in response to the issue of why the products are chosen to be sold instead of given away for free, explained that the sugar industry and farmers must also be considered to avoid losses on their part.

“Naisin mang ipamigay ito ng libre direkta sa mga nangangailangan, kailangang isaalang-alang ang industriya ng asukal, kasama ang mga maliliit na magsasaka. Ang pagbigay ng libre ng mga asukal ay mag-reresulta sa artipisyal na pagbagsak ng presyo na ikalulugi ng mga kababayan nating nasa industriya ng asukal,” the PCO said.

Thumbnail from the Bureau of Customs