Cane planters in northern Cebu to get calamity aid

CEBU, Philippines - Hundreds of sugarcane planters in northern Cebu are expected to benefit from an emergency employment program as the Sugar Tripartite Council (STC) has approved the release and use of P14-million fund for the industry workers affected by last year’s super typhoon.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz, who chairs STC, announced the approval in a form of a resolution unanimously approved recently by the council members in a meeting attended by various sugar milling industry stakeholders.

“I am happy that the Sugar Tripartite Council is fast to respond to the need of sugar workers to be able to stand up on their own again. The emergency employment program is a post-calamity strategy that provides income support to calamity victims,” said Baldoz in a report.

About P4 million of the Sugar Amelioration Program (SAP) fund will be sourced out from the Socio-economic Project Fund while the remaining P10 million will come from the Sugar Workers’ Fund.

Aside from sugarcane plantation workers in Cebu’s fourth district, the program is also set to benefit sugar workers in Region 6 and 8 after Yolanda destroyed sugar mills, sugarcane crops, infrastructure and the workers’ houses in the areas.

In Cebu, roughly 90 percent of sugarcane planters in the towns of Medellin, San Remegio, Tabogon, Daanbantayan and Bogo City had houses made of light materials that easily fell prey to the destructive storm.

Northern Cebu is home to close to 10,000 hectares of immense tract of flat lands conducive to planting sugarcane. At present, over 80 percent of these lands are being utilized for cane plantation.

“Malipay ta ana nga balita kay kinahanglan gyud atong mga farmers diri og support sa gobyerno karong panahona,” said Bogo-Medellin Milling Corporation (Bomedco) general manager Joel Cayasan, who welcomed the development that aims to assist in the immediate restoration and rehabilitation of affected sugarcane milling districts.

Bomedco, which usually runs a yearly production requirement of 600,000 bags of milled sugar, is currently functioning eight hours less of its daily 24-hour operations. It was even worse last month when the company was under-operating by 50 percent its maximum capacity.

While Cayasan hopes losses could be recovered soon, he expects about 10 to 20 percent decrease in their yearly production for 2014.

Foreign experts from the US, Cayasan pointed out, have even estimated the slide to go down further by as much as 40 percent.

The months of December to June are usually the harvest season but because the typhoon came a month earlier in November, it had destructed a vast portion of sugarcanes that could have been harvested in two months time.

Cayasan said it will take two years before the planting and harvest cycle settles back to its normal pace.

“Ang mahitabo karon nga year kay mapugos mi og harvest bisan og di pa mature ang mga tubo kay para lang mabalik mi sa normal cycle sa tingtanom,” said Cayasan.

In their meeting last week, STC officials said they have found the emergency employment project proposed by the labor department’s Bureau of Workers with Special Concerns as acceptable as it will provide affected sugar workers with employment alternatives and income while the industry grapples to recovery.

The SAP is provided for under P.D. No. 621 and enhanced under R.A. No. 6982, which expands sugar workers’ benefits and established the tripartite mechanism for planters, millers and workers to participate in policy decision-making.

The department’s announcement did not, however, specify when and how the program is going to be rolled out. (FREEMAN)