Philippines' largest sugar mill denies 'hoarding 'sugar

Crystal Sugar Company Inc, one of the country's largest sugar mills, on Thursday denied government claims it was "hoarding" sugar and causing a shortage of artificial sugar.

"This is a big lie," said Javier Sagarbarria, vice president of crystal sugar management, who also manages the company's sugar factory in Maramag, Bukinon.

Sagarbarria in particular balked at reports from the state-run Radyo Pilipinas, which portrayed the company as a sugar hoarding company.

"We're not hiding sugar. We can prove to you that Crystal Sugar isn't even hoarding a bag of sugar." Sagarbarria told reporters in Malamag on Thursday.

He added that they wanted to know where reporters got the information that the company's warehouse in Cagayan de Oro was raided Tuesday.

The "raid" was an inspection by the Customs Service and the Sugar Regulatory Authority (SRA) on orders from President Marcos to clean up stocks of sugar held in warehouses in anticipation of further spikes in sugar prices.

"We don't have a warehouse in Cagayan de Oro." Sagarbarria said, adding that its storage facilities are located in the Maramag 57-hectare factory.

Sagarbarria said the company was surprised by government agents' claims that Crystal Sugar was hoarding sugar, and he had explained the matter and offered to take them to the company warehouse.

Sagarbarria explained that under the current "egg shortage" system, the sugar 66% in the warehouse belongs to the grower and 34% belongs to the miller.

He said that as of Thursday, there were about 390,000 50kg bags (about 19,500 metric tons) of sugar in the crystal sugar company warehouse, of which 170,000 bags were owned by the company and the rest by growers, who may also have sold them to traders.

"But once sugar is bought by traders, Crystal Sugar doesn't care if they take these to hell, purgatory or heaven." Sagarbarria said, adding that the company has been "regulating the outflow of its own sugar stocks".