[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’Piñol ‘barking up the wrong tree’ – GAWA’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MAE SINGUAY
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=’custom’ color=”]
Saturday, March 25, 2017
[/av_textblock]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
BACOLOD City – Emmanuel Piñol is “barking up the wrong tree” when he called sugar planters and farmworkers “spoiled brats” for protesting against the importation and use of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a labor group said.
The General Alliance of Workers Association (GAWA) slammed the Agriculture secretary for issuing an “insensitive” statement in light of the rally in front of a beverage company plant in Barangay Mansilingan on Monday.
The labor sector was “dismayed” when Piñol called for the suspension of Sugar Order (SO) No. 3, which put in place stricter regulations in importing the alternative sweetener, GAWA secretary-general Wennie Sancho told a news conference on Friday.
“It appeared that he became the mouthpiece of multinational capitalist beverage and soft drink companies using … HFCS as … substitute for our local sugar,” Sancho said.
Piñol wants SO No. 3 suspended “pending wider consultations,” especially among beverage companies using HFCS.
The Agriculture secretary calling the protesters “spoiled brats” and “well-funded demonstrators” is “an insult to the dignity of the workers,” Sancho said.
Police estimated the crowd in front of Coca-Cola FEMSA Philippines, Inc. on Monday at “more than 5,000.”
“Is the good secretary aware that 80 percent of our sugar farms are owned by small farmers and agrarian reform beneficiaries?” said Sancho.
Farmers joined the rally because they and their families stand to be affected by the unabated importation of HFCS, he said.
Sugar workers and others in the agriculture sector believe “Piñol abandoned them as he abandoned the cause of the poor and the oppressed workers in the sugar and agricultural industry,” said Sancho.
Piñol insisted in a statement that he was only “seeking a win-win solution.”
He said he only asked for the suspension, not scrapping, of SO No. 3.
Soft drink companies may get adversely affected if the order is carried out immediately, the secretary said.
Sancho also said Piñol acted “like Pontius Pilate” by “[washing] his hands” and “[blaming] the previous administrations for allowing the entry of HFCS.”
The Benigno Aquino administration, which “the hacienderos of Negros Occidental supported,” allowed the use of HFCS, Piñol said in his statement.
“So here is a situation where sugar planters, acting like spoiled brats, are accusing me of being anti-farmer for seeking a win-win solution to a problem which was created by the very administration they supported,” he said.
Piñol is “barking up the wrong tree,” Sancho said, insisting that “workers have the right to peaceably assemble for the redress of grievance.”
“We condemn the insensitive statement of Piñol in the strongest possible terms,” he said./PN
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
