The Sugar Regulatory Administration yesterday admitted that the Customs Bonded Warehouse agencies had imported 55,016 metric tons of sugar, mostly colored or with flavoring.

SRA chief James Ledesma scotched reports that 250,000 metric tons had been bought by Filipino importers as claimed by a Thai sugarman. These figures are permissible importations which the SRA had authorized. Actually, they are below the 80,000 metric tons usually brought in by CBWs which are authorized by law provided they are also used for exported finished products, Ledesma said.

MARO group denouncing
transfer of Leonidas, too

Although Teresita Depeñosa has assumed office as the new provincial agrarian reform officer, the United Municipal Agrarian Reform Officers Association of Negros Occidental joined other sectors in denouncing the sudden transfer of PARO Stephen Leonidas to the regional office in Iloilo.

Like the DAR employees union, UMANO also linked the reassignment of Leonidas to the ongoing land distribution conflict in Hacienda Velez-Malaga in La Castellana.

In a manifesto, signed by agrarian officers in the province, the group assailed the propriety of the transfer of Leonidas stressing that the latter was made a "scapegoat" by the high ranking officials of DAR.

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