‘SRA chief’s quitting not due to sugar importation’

Palace starts looking for OIC

MANILA, Philippines — It was for health reasons that David John Thaddeus Alba decided to resign as administrator of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) and not due to the sugar importation controversy, Malacañang said yesterday.

The Presidential Communications Office (PCO) confirmed the resignation and said Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin had tried to dissuade Alba from quitting, but relented when the SRA official firmly told him of his “worsening health condition.”

“As already relayed by the ES, his resignation is due to his health,” PCO Secretary Cheloy Garafil said when asked if Alba’s decision was an offshoot of the sugar importation brouhaha.

“Administrator Alba visited ES Bersamin last Wednesday, informing him of his decision to resign. ES Bersamin persuaded him not to, but he reasoned his worsening health condition,” the PCO said.

“Upon the directive of the President, his resignation will be effective on April 15 to prepare the appointment of his replacement,” it said.

Alba’s resignation came on the heels of the controversial importation of 440,000 metric tons (MT) of sugar ahead of the SRA’s issuance of Sugar Order No. 6.

SRA board member and planters’ representative Pablo Luis Azcona said President Marcos accepted Alba’s resignation and denied that the SRA chief was a “sacrificial lamb” in the sugar importation mess. Marcos concurrently serves as agriculture secretary. Azcona also said the SRA Board has decided to appoint an officer-in-charge as Alba’s replacement.

Any of the three deputy administrators of SRA, he stressed, can be appointed as OIC once the resignation of Alba takes effect on April 15.

The three SRA deputy administrators are Bran Noronia, Third Tejida and Nene Santillana.

In a text message, United Sugar Producers Federation president Manuel Lamata said they are saddened by Alba’s resignation but are confident the development will not impact heavily on the industry.

“We cannot do anything if it’s (his) health at stake. Hope he gets well soon,” he said.

“I don’t see any implications in the SRA or in the sugar industry. The assistant administrator Guillermo Tejida will take over as officer-in-charge and the board is still functioning. So, I think we will be OK,” he said.

Former agriculture chief Leonardo Montemayor expressed belief it was the importation issue that prompted Alba to resign.

“One can read between the lines of his letter. He assumed his SRA post only last August,” Montemayor told The STAR.

Disheartening

Farmers’ group Philippine Chamber of Agriculture and Food Inc. (PCAFI) president Danilo Fausto said it is “disheartening” to see key officials leaving office or getting replaced even before vital programs can take off.

“While we struggle to develop our agriculture sector, frequent changes in leadership will result in lack of consistency and predictability in the implementation of programs and policies of the DA,” he said.

“We need good leaders at DA with integrity, honesty and conviction to implement programs and policies to assist our farmers and fisherfolk. Personnel of DA should be inspired, encouraged and professionalized and good performance be properly recognized and rewarded in order to have a well-organized, effective and structured bureaucracy so that program implementation will be swift and precise,” he explained.

“We are a nation in a hurry and good people and leadership at DA is what we need right now,” Fausto said.

Enrique Rojas, president of the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters (NFSP), said they respect Alba’s decision to resign but admitted speculations float that the sugar importation issue had something to do with it.

“We are confident that Alba’s resignation will not negatively impact the sugar industry, because, surely, Malacañang will not allow the top post in SRA to remain vacant at this crucial stage of the milling season,” Rojas said in a statement.

He said it was the first time that a shipment of imported sugar arrived even before the issuance of sugar order allowing its importation.

This was also the first time that Malaca?ang directly ordered SRA to release the illegally imported sugar, thereby usurping SRA’s exclusive mandate to regulate the supply of sugar in the country, he pointed out.

“Moreover, this is the first time that the Department of Agriculture, claiming it acted on direct orders from Malaca?ang, chose only three favored traders to import the sugar, which is in direct contravention to the provisions of Sugar Order No. 6 allowing such sugar importation and stating the process in awarding the volume of importation,” Rojas further said.

The three were All Asian Countertrade Inc., allowed to import 240,000 metric tons; Edison Lee Marketing (100,000 MT) and S&D SUCDEN Philippines Inc. (100,000 MT).

“Under these circumstances, we laud SRA administrator Dave Alba’s decision to resign, and thus remove himself from any further involvement in this questionable importation,” the NFSP president said.

He said they hope Alba’s successor “will be a person who has a comprehensive knowledge of the sugar industry, is not identified with any vested interests and is a person of proven honesty and integrity.”

Wennie Sancho, lead convenor of the Save the Sugar Industry Movement, an organization of labor groups in the industry, said Alba may have caved in to “pressure from above,” hence his decision to resign.

President Marcos appointed Alba in August 2022 following the resignation of then SRA administrator Hermenegildo Serafica, who stepped down from his position in the wake of the issuance of Sugar Order No. 4 authorizing the importation of 300,000 MT of sugar.

Alba had approved the issuance of clearances for the 440,000 MT sugar imports following a memorandum from Agriculture Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban directing him to certify the legality of the shipment.

In a memorandum dated Feb. 27, 2023, Panganiban tasked AIba to issue the necessary documentation for the awarding of the contract to ship in 440,000 MT of imported sugar to three sugar importers.

Panganiban earlier denied there were irregularities in the importation of the 440,000 MT of sugar prior to the SRA’s issuance of SO 6.

Panganiban said he considered the memorandum issued by Bersamin dated Jan. 13 as already a “sugar order” to proceed with the importation to augment the country’s tightening supply and prevent price surges.

“In response to the directive of the President to address inflation and create a buffer stock and given that sugar as one of the components of most commodities that drives the consistently high inflation rate, I acted with haste and interpreted the memorandum issued by the Office of the Executive Secretary as an approval to proceed with the importation,” Panganiban said at a Palace press briefing on Feb. 22.  – Bella Cariaso, Danessa Rivera, Gilbert Bayoran