ANGELES CITY – Relatives of Pres. Aquino and Interior and Local Government Sec. Mar Roxas stand to greatly benefit from the “sugar fund” bill pending before the Senate committee on agriculture.
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) noted yesterday “four bills pending before the Senate and one in
the House of Representatives seeking to strengthen the sugarcane industry by creating a “sugar fund” to cushion the impacts of the “zero tariff” in the sugar industry next year.
The four bills in the Senate were filed by Senators Francis Escudero, Antonio Trillanes, Joseph Victor Ejercito, and Nancy Binay, while Rep. Alfredo Benitez of Negros Occidental filed one in the House.
“Except from the bill filed by Trillanes, all the other bills states that the sugar fund will be utilized to finance sugar industry development projects that includes, among others, special economic zones, nuclear farms or agro-industrial sugarcane districts,” noted KMP Deputy Secretary General Willy Marbella.
Marbella said “the sugar fund bill is a concoction of sugar barons, big landlords, and bureaucrats to further squeeze profi t from farmers and farmworkers under the guise of saving the sugar industry from the onslaught of trade liberalization.”
“The main beneficiaries of the ‘sugar fund’ bill are sugar barons and big landlords including the President’s and Roxas’ relatives,” said Marbella. He also noted that “the Cojuangcos continue to control the more than 6,000-hectare Hacienda Luisita and own Central Azucarera de Tarlac and Aquino’s uncle, Eduardo ‘Danding’ Cojuangco Jr. also owns vast sugar lands in Negros Occidental while more than 7,000 hectares of Hacienda Roxas in Nasugbu, Batangas was reverted back to the Roxases who are also owners of the Central Azucarera
de Don Pedro.”
He also said “Roxas belongs to the Roxas clan whose ownership of sugar plantations and mill extends to the Visayas region.” “The sugar fund bill will defi nitely fast-track the Cojuangcos plan to turn Hacienda Luisita into a special ecozone, legitimize the illegal conversion of lands, and pave the way for the implementation of sugar block farming that would result in land grabbing and displacement of farmworkers,” said Marbella.
“Worse, the conversion of Luisita into a special eco-zone will be funded by taxpayers’ money,” Marbella said, adding that “under the bills, the sugar fund will be constituted and collected from the proceeds of fifteen percent of the value added tax on the sale and importation of refined sugar, and sugarcane by-products; and the total tariff collected on the importation of raw sugar, refined sugar, and premixed sugar.”
