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[av_heading heading=’Groups back SRA in legal battle vs Coke’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MAE SINGUAY
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Friday, March 10, 2017
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BACOLOD City – Three groups in Negros Occidental expressed support to the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), which is facing a civil suit from a beverage production company over Sugar Order No. 3.
Coca-Cola FEMSA Philippines, Inc. asked a Quezon City regional trial court (RTC) to issue a temporary restraining order against the Sugar Order that regulates the importation of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and nullify it.
Kilusang Pagbabago is one of the groups backing the SRA. Its spokesman Archie Baribar said Coca-Cola filed an 82-page complaint on March 3 before the Quezon City RTC Branch 98.
SRA administrator Anna Rosario Paner, Agriculture secretary Emmanuel Piñol and Customs commissioner Nicanor Faeldon were named respondents, Baribar said.
The first hearing was on Tuesday and the next one is on March 20.
Essentially Coca-Cola wants the court to stop the SRA from regulating the HFCS and the alternative sweetener to not be classified as sugar, said Baribar.
The beverage company had long been criticized for allegedly using the HFCS instead of locally produced sugar.
Baribar warned that the market will get “flooded” by the HFCS and domestic sugar will be “secondary priority” for food and beverage producers and processors if the court grants Coca-Cola’s appeal.
Kilusang Pagbabago has yet to convene and decide whether or not to intervene in the legal battle, said Baribar, a lawyer.
Meanwhile Save the Sugar Industry Movement lead convener Wennie Sancho said they are ready to defend Paner and the SRA from the “corporate greed” of industrial users that are “against the welfare and interest of stakeholders and the ultimate survival of the sugar industry.”
Sancho said they will convince all labor groups in Negros Occidental to join the organization in a rally showing support to the SRA.
“We in Confed and the Sugar Alliance are fully supportive of the SRA … and we will do everything we can to continue protecting this industry at all cost,” Confed (Confederation of Sugar Producers Cooperative) national president Francis de la Rama said in a statement.
He also said the Confed is “praying that the courts will see the merits of SRA’s actions and its effects, if not implemented, to the millions who are directly and indirectly involved in the sugar industry.”
Under Sugar Order No. 3, an importer or consignee of the imported HFCS and chemically pure fructose must be an international trader duly registered with the SRA at the time of the application for clearance for release.
Applicants for the release must submit to the Regulation Department of the SRA in Quezon City various requirements, which must all be complied with before the application can be accepted for processing.
The clearance for the release shall indicate the classification of the products as “B” for domestic market, “C” for reserved and “D” for world market.
Noncompliance with the Sugar Order will subject the importer or consignee to the penalties provided under Sugar Order No. 10, as amended by Sugar Order No. 10-A, “without prejudice to any other administrative and/or legal action that the SRA may pursue.”/PN
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