Sugar and education

Two things have preoccupied our mind: the future of sugar and education.

Sugar Regulatory Administrator James Ledesma called for an expansion of sugar areas and increase production and Senator Edgardo Angara called for a lobby against the deterioration of the quality of our education.

These are important issues.

Last Friday during our interview at our Feedback program, Ledesma called on the industry to expand its areas because of the increasing need for sugar. James was answering the question of televiewers of the future of the sugar industry. Our program was dominated by phoned-in questions.

But here's the catch, only the efficient ones must expand. No matter how high the price if you produce 60 lkgs per hectare or below, you are bound to lose. And they make the loudest complaints.

Ledesma was asked that in the face of the boom how serious will the bust be considering the trauma of the planters of the boom in 1974 when the London market quoted as high as 64 U.S. cents a pound.

I remember one of the causes of the surge of the price was the refusal of the Philippines to unload because President Marcos wanted to wait until it would reach one dollar to a pound which did not as it collapsed at 64.

This boom was followed by a bust that we could no longer sell our sugar and our churches and pelota courts were full of them.

The U.S. angered by our refusal to sell when they needed it, refused to buy our sugar. Today the price hovers around 19 cents a pound.

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Nothing to fear about the bust, James said. The situation now is different. He pointed out that the savior now is ethanol. The ethanol plant in San Carlos will soon be operational and that means one mill less in producing sugar for the table.

Considering the escalating cost of energy and there is no stop in the increase of its cost, like yesterday three oil companies increased its price by 50 centavos to a liter, time will come in the near future when we will have to resort to ethanol.

It will not take long, gasoline will cost P50 a liter. When this happens we will be forced to produce ethanol and by that time it may now be more profitable to plant sugar cane for energy instead of for food.

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Ledesma said Brazil that produces 27 million tons of sugar, now allocates 52.7 per cent of that to ethanol.

Thailand too, he added, is serious with ethanol and has put up some ethanol plants already. Australia too.

Using these facts that we must expand acreage, SRA must help in seeing to it that good prices are maintained to encourage the planters to produce more. James said a price of P1,150 to P1,200 an lkg for raw sugar which will mean some P1,600 refined or P32 a kilo in the retail stores is already good enough.

I agreed this is already good. What the planters are afraid of is the bust, reminiscent of 1974. But we have to give it to James Ledesma too. He is caught in the middle. All those who phoned in their questions here were planters who wanted a good price. He said, when he was interviewed in Manila, the phoned in questions were from the consumers who castigated him for the high prices. James Ledesma walks the tightrope.

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Now on education. Earlier that day, we were in the press conference of Senator Edgardo Angara at the NFSP. Angara lamented the decline of the quality of our education.

He said we cannot be competitive in the world with our kind of education. The level of achievement of a sixth grader now is that of a fourth grader and that of a fourth year high school is that of a sixth grader, he said. Our teachers in science, math, and English subjects are going abroad lured by a much better pay, he said. He pointed out some 80 teachers recruited by Maryland from the Philippines with not only a promise of a good salary but they could bring along their family with the promise of a citizenship.

And there are more, Angara said. We are squandering our intellectual capital, he added. In points of competitiveness we are going down by five points every year, both in public and private education. We do not spend enough for our education, he said.

Angara gave impressive statistics. Then yesterday, we read people in DepEd threatened to stage a rally with the plan of Malacañang to put as education secretary a military man. They want an educator. Which should be.*

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