Cane purchase – 3

The lament of the sugarcane planters expressed in their published statements has received mixed reactions from media commentators. While many sympathized with the planters some sneered at them for bringing along into the issue the negative impact on the sugarcane workers, especially on the matter of the Republic Act 809 and the Social Amelioration Fund and its accompanying Program.

Some of these criticisms are valid but others are unfair. Nevertheless let’s leave that to the planters to defend their position because in truth the planters, the Sugar Regulatory Administration and most important of all, the Department of Labor will have to deal with that.

The criticism against the planters reflects the continuing lack of understanding or even misunderstanding of the industry that the industry leaders must deal with.

The blow of the loss of the SAF will not be felt now but after the milling season and even during this December the issue of the SAF will have to be confronted. The question of whether the planters who sold their canes are liable for non-distribution of the SAF will have to be answered.

At this stage the scheme is voluntary and only in Victorias Milling Company. This can be a test case and if it succeeds the system can become nationwide and the repercussions will afflict the entire industry with ramifications that we can anticipate but we can also ignore at the peril of the economy.

But as usual with Filipinos we act when the problem has metastasized.

The sugarcane associations and their federations also raised the issue of threat to their existence. Indeed, the cane purchase scheme will make the associations irrelevant and unnecessary. The present sharing system makes them imperative.

What are the roles of the associations or why were they organized at all?

At the early stage of the centrifugal sugar production, the sharing system was at best 60-40 but while this was all right at the beginning, the planters saw that they were at the mercy of the mills that determined the quantity of the sugar. The mill, even now, can simply declare “catis” or no sugar at all enough to pay the mill for grinding. The planters get nothing.

The origin and evolution of the planters association is a long story albeit a dramatic one. Suffice for the moment to recall that the associations were established to check on the accuracy of the mill’s computation especially the report of the laboratory. Without the planters’ representative, despite the presence of the government agency (now the Sugar Regulatory Administration) the planters feel more secure that their interest is protected.

The association needed money and to fund their operation as the representative and protector of their interest, the planters had to pay dues to the association. Representation costs money. How much, the dues vary from mill to mill, or more precisely, from association to association.

Once the cane purchase scheme is implemented and the cane and the corresponding sugar belong to the mill there is no need for the association and without the association there will be no federations.

We are back then to the years of the 1920s when the mills were in total control as there were no associations. The Federacion de Asociaciones y Plantadores de Caña Dulce (now theNational Federation of Sugarcane Planters) was organized in 1928 in La Carlota because the associations by themselves did not have the voice and the strength to fight the mills which had their own organization, the Philippine Sugar Producers Association organized in October 1922.

Known as the centralistas, they invited the planters to join but the clash of their interests was such that the planters rejected the invitation (except for two that later also left the PSMA) and formed their own.

The cane purchase scheme, once adopted by all the mills will thus put sugarcane planters associations and their federations to death. Even if initially it is adopted on a phased basis, the end result is the same – the emasculation of the associations.  

It is not surprising that planters are fighting against the cane purchase scheme. They are fighting for survival.

The sugarcane bill filed by Rep. Albee Benitez assumes that the present sharing scheme is in place by the time his bill is approved but under the cane purchase scheme many of its plans will simple be impossible to implement. The planters will not be there, only the millers.

The greater danger is that once the mills are supreme they will dictate the price. The Benitez does not provide for the protection of the industry’s agricultural sector.

There is then more to be concerned in the cane purchase scheme. There is the matter of political control that in the past forced the planters to organize to balance the political power of the millers.*

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