From a high of more than P100 per kilo, the retail price of refined sugar is expected to go down to P60 per kilo with the “discovery of thousands of stocks” in warehouses in Bulacan and Pampanga, senior Agriculture undersecretary Domingo Panganiban said.
Panganiban, a former Agriculture chief, said that more raids will be conducted on warehouses in the Visayas and Mindanao.
“We expect to bring down the retail price of refined sugar between P60 and P65 per kilo. We have enough sugar supply following the discovery of thousands of stocks in Bulacan and Pampanga,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Customs on Monday implemented a Letter of Authority (LOA) and Mission Order (MO) issued and signed by Customs Commissioner Yogi Filemon Ruiz against a warehouse in Caloocan City that held an estimated P231 million worth of rice and sugar.
Customs officers said 66,000 sacks of rice and 13,000 sacks of sugar—all at 50 kilos each—that originated from Thailand and Vietnam were in the two big warehouses in a compound at 448 Kabutuhan Street, Deparo Road, Brgy. 168, Caloocan City.
The LOA and MO were issued against the owner, representative, or whoever is in possession of the “imported goods” in the storage, BOC said in a statement.
“We are very proud of these recent operations—the ones in Bulacan, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Manila, Batangas, and Davao. It proves how serious we are in getting at the bottom of the issue of hoarding agricultural products, like rice and sugar,” Ruiz said.
“We are aware of how these could affect our farmers, our markets, the people. The inspections we’ve been doing are aimed at stopping this abuse,” he added.
The Sugar Regulatory Administration earlier said they are determining, together with the Department of Trade and Industry, if there was hoarding in the two warehouses in Central Luzon that yielded some 44,000 sacks of sugar.
“Hoarding is an offense subject to verification. Hoarding would be determined, for example, if more than half of your storage capacity is not moving. This is effectively depriving the public of availing the product or commodity such as sugar,” SRA Deputy Administrator Guillermo Tejida III said over the weekend.
The Bureau of Customs, for its part, said they are “looking at the possibility of economic sabotage.”
Panganiban said the reduced price of P70 per kilo of refined sugar in supermarkets will also influence the retail price in wet markets.
The government and various supermarkets recently secured at least 1.8 million bags of sugar from Victorias and Universal Robina Corp.
“The stocks in the supermarkets will last until December,” Panganiban said.
Supermarkets will add a “purchase limit” of one kilo per customer to prevent possible household hoarding by enterprising consumers.
Meanwhile, Kabayan party-list Rep. Ron Salo said the availability of cheaper sugar was a “highly-welcome development” and a “great relief” for consumers.
“This was achieved without any importation even of a single kilo of sugar and without sacrificing the welfare of our local farmers, but by the decisive action of PBBM (President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.) in invalidating Sugar Order No. 4 that sought to import 300,000 tons of sugar, and taking to task those responsible,” Salo said.
Over the weekend, the BOC conducted a series of inspections on several sugar warehouses in Caloocan City and Marilao, Bulacan where they found thousands of sacks of sugar.