The sugar industry and the Ethanol Producers Association of the Philippines won a temporary relief when Petron, the oil company, withdrew its petition to cut down to only 0 percent the tariff on imported ethanol.

The tariff commission, however, is still locked in their petition plus that of the Sugar Regulatory Administration to raise the tariff from the current one percent to 10 or 20 percent to provide a climate that will induce investors to put their money into ethanol projects.

Tariff Commission chair Edgardo Abon said the increased tariff rate as “pre-operating protection.”

Sugar rates sink

Prices of “B” or domestic sugar dropped this week, prompting sugar leaders to call for measures to prevent a further slump in the price of the province's main product.

Central Azucarera de la Carlota which sold off its stocks at P1,380 (high) P1,370 (low) last week, disposed off its sugar at P1,256.10 at Thursday's bidding, data from the Sugar Master Plan Foundation showed.

SONEDCO, which sold at P1,360 last week, pegged its rate at P1,275 although it raised its volume to 30,338.94 LKgs from its 26,118.58 Lkgs at the October 29 bidding.

GSIS gives P233M
hospital discounts

The Government Service Insurance System has given P233.4 million in cumulative hospitalization discounts to its members and pensioners under its GSIS Hospitalization Support Program as of September 2009, a GSIS press release said.

The discounts prove that the GHSP is the most generous and effective corporate social responsibility program of the pension fund, it also said.

About 158,615 patients have availed of the program from its inception in 2004 up to end of September 2009.

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