Palace approves aid for sugar workers

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines — Presidential deputy spokesman Anthony Golez said Sunday sugar industry workers could avail of government assistance during the “dead season.”

Golez said he earlier requested Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral to look into how the agency could help the sugar industry workers that would be left without a source of income during the months when there would be no work in the sugar farms.

Negros Occidental and sugar industry leaders are girding for the early onset of a long dead season that could last five months, because of low sugar production this crop year.

Negros Occidental Board Member Enrique Miguel Lacson, chairman of the Provincial Sugar Industry Task Force, said Monday the dead season that usually started in June or July could begin in May in southern Negros Occidental, thereby affecting 500,000 farm workers in the sugar industry.

Golez said the DSWD would distribute benefits from the Pantawid Pamilya Program (bridge for the families) like conditional cash transfers.

“I already informed her (Cabral) of the longer dead season in Negros. I asked her to come up with programs that will mitigate it. We have to make sure that food and other services must be given to the families of farmers. She replied yes to our request,” he said.

Rafael Coscolluela, Sugar Regulatory Administration chief, said it would be difficult to say at this time how long the dead season would last and how many sugar workers would be affected.

“We will discuss the new crop assessment in tomorrow's (Tuesday's) board meeting and see what the scenario might be. For the meantime planters associations would seem the best situated to the make their own assessments and plans for their member planters,” Coscolluela said.

Negros Occidental Governor Isidro Zayco has created the Provincial Sugar Industry Task Force to come up with a coordinated plan to address the problem.

The province plans to request the Department of Labor and Employment to release P30 million for a rice subsidy program for the sugar workers during the dead season.

If the request for rice subsidy would be brought to his attention, Golez said, he would be more than glad to be the voice of the province in Malacañang.