Finance chief: Gov’t won’t tolerate sugar smuggling

BACOLOD CITY—The Aquino administration would not tolerate any individual or group responsible for sugar smuggling.

Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima made the assurance in a May 24 letter to the National Federation of Sugar Planters president Enrique Rojas furnished to the Inquirer Thursday.

“Sugar smuggling is a very serious issue and we would like to deal with it immediately and effectively. I would like to assure you that the government is one with you in our efforts to curb sugar smuggling,” Purisima said.

Purisima was responding to a May 17 open letter of Rojas to President Aquino, published in national and local newspapers, on the issue of rampant sugar smuggling in the country.

In his open letter, Rojas cited recent documented apprehensions of smuggled sugar from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, and proposed measures to help address the problem.

He noted that sugar smuggling, both actual and technical, has brought down domestic sugar prices. “It (sugar smuggling) has deprived sugar farmers of the rightful fruits of their labor and investment. More importantly, it has cheated the government of billions of pesos in much-needed revenues which could have been used to enhance delivery of basic services to our people,” Rojas added. /INQUIRER