Protesting sugar planters should've lobbied in congress

“That’s what mayors do. They lobby Congress to provide resources for their city.” Maxine Waters

By Alex P. Vidal

TRAFFIC gridlock is worsening in the Bonifacio Drive, City Proper due to the on-going road-widening construction project of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) from the foot of Forbes Bridge (the bridge that connects Iloilo City Proper to the districts of La Paz and Jaro across the Iloilo River).

Because it is a main street used by motorists going to the districts of La Paz and Jaro and those going to the City Proper, the gridlock results in monstrous traffic in the adjoining Gen. Luna and Iznart Streets.

Vehicles stopped on the bridge causing heavy inconvenience on the riding public.

Because they are late in their offices, schools and other transactions, programs and activities, people who take the Jaro Liko, Jaro CPU and La Paz passenger jeeps and cabs curse the city hall, the DPWH, including President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

They also use expletives to describe their harrowing ordeal in the traffic.

And nobody disagrees with them.

The city’s traffic management should do something to solve the problem as soon as possible.

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WHERE was the Jalasig Sugarcane Planters Association, a group composed of sugar industry leaders in central Iloilo, when congress was deliberating the Senate Bill No. 2400 or the Sugarcane Industry Development Act, which sought to make the sugarcane industry more competitive by consolidating small farms?

The measure also reiterated the exemption of refined sugar for export from value-added tax (VAT).

It sought to prepare the country’s industry for integration with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economic community by the end of 2015.

The Iloilo sugar planters should have fought tongs and hammer during the committee deliberations to also exempt raw sugar from 12 percent VAT.

Their chances to be heard were great.

The measure was known in the Lower House as House Bill no. 4633, and one of the measure’s authors was Rep. Sharon Garin (AAMBIS-OWA party-list).

With some 40,000 members, Jalasig Sugarcane Planters Association, is a force to reckon with in the industry.

ILONGGO

Garin and another Ilonggo Rep. Alfredo Abelardo Benitez (Negros Occidental, third district) would have given weight to their representation.  

The measure sought to consolidate farms smaller than five hectares into blocks to make management “more professionalized” and ensure better delivery of assistance.

It would institutionalize the Sugar Regulatory Administration’s (SRA) Block Farming Program, explained Senate agriculture committee chair Cynthia A. Villar.

In their rally in Zarraga, Iloilo on March 25, sugarcane farmers asked President Aquino and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Kim Henares to scrap the 12 percent VAT on raw sugar.

The government requires sugar cane planters to pay in advance the 12 percent VAT before the commodities are removed from refineries and distributed to customers.