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By Jessica Hermosa And Johanna
Sisante Vera Files
(Editor’s Note: The first
part discussed how the President’s brother-in-law is evading
coverage of his property by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law by
turning it into an agro-industrial land, and how legislators are
benefiting from the Biofuels Law that they themselves drafted and
proposed.)
Last of two parts
Perhaps no other lawmaker is as
enthusiastic about biofuels as Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri.
Zubiri was still congressman for
the Third District of Bukidnon when he became principal author of
the House bill that eventually became Republic Act 9367 or the
Biofuels Act. He campaigned hard to get other lawmakers to support
the measure that he earned himself the nickname “Mr. Biofuel.”
His official page in the Senate website describes him as the
“father of the Biofuels Act of 2006.”
Zubiri’s campaign for biofuels
appears to be in keeping with his pro-environment image. Biofuels,
made from such sources as sugarcane, coconut and jatropha, are after
all supposed to be a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels. But Zubiri
and his family—longtime sugar planters—also stand to gain from
the budding biofuel industry that will depend mostly on sugar land
for raw material.
Like Zubiri, 10 other authors of
the Biofuels Act in the House of Representatives and the Senate and
their families own agricultural lands that can or will provide
feedstock for biofuel production. They include former congressman
Herminio Teves and President Gloria Arroyo’s brother-in-law,
Ignacio “Iggy” Arroyo.
Ethical lapses like these marked
the passage of the Biofuels Act of 2006. Some of the lawmakers’
vested interests prevented thorough discussions of the conversion of
agricultural land to biofuel purposes, a move that will not only
deprive farmers of land, but also cause more environmental damage in
the long run.
Zubiri belongs to a family with a
long-running history in the sugar business. His uncle George and
father Jose Maria, the current governor of Bukidnon, hail from
Negros Occidental, part of the country’s “sugar bowl.”
The Zubiris are credited for
bringing sugarcane to Bukidnon in the 1970s. The two were holding
top positions at the Confederation of Sugar Producers Association at
the time the younger Zubiri drafted the Biofuels Law.
Fernando Corpuz, manager of the
Sugar Regulatory Administration’s research development and
extension for Luzon and Mindanao, said Zubiri’s father “still
has a lot of clout in it [sugar industry] being a political icon,”
even after he has sold their sugar mill to five Chinese traders.
Zubiri denied allegations of
conflict of interest in the passage of the Biofuels Act. “I’m
fighting for my district and for the constituency of all the
sugar-producing areas,” said the 38-year-old senator. “I’m
fighting for the interests of the farmers: They are five million
Filipinos. That’s my job.”
These farmers have suffered from
the lag in the sugar industry, which posted the largest decline
among the agricultural industries at the end of 2007, partly because
of low world prices for table sugar. The Sugar Regulatory
Administration then looked to bioethanol as an alternative market to
revive the industry.
The Biofuels Act mandates the
production of bioethanol from sugarcane, among other plant sources,
and biodiesel from coconut and jatropha, effectively creating a
bigger market for plantation owners. It also grants tax privileges
to those who want to enter the biofuel industry.
It was Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago,
former Secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform, who raised
the issue of conflict of interest in the passage of the Biofuels Act
when she alleged in press releases that landlords had strongly
lobbied for biofuels.
Santiago, head of the Senate
Committee on Energy, said in a speech she delivered at the Energy
Summit in January that legislators must immediately inform Congress
of possible conflict of interest that may occur because of their
proposed legislations. She cited the Anti-Graft Law that bans any
lawmaker from authoring bills that may grant benefits to his or her
business interests.
Feeling alluded to, Zubiri
clarified that his family—the ruling political clan in Bukidnon
that owns vast landholdings—has shifted from sugar to bananas.
“I’m not producing sugar anymore. It’s all bananas now,” he
said.
Eli Branzuela, provincial
Agrarian Reform officer for South Bukidnon, said, however, the
senator’s father still has a connection with the Bukidnon Sugar
Milling Co. (Busco), which the family used to own, because of his
position as Bukidnon governor.
The young senator was quoted in
media as having said that Busco would tie up with Bronzeoak
Philippines to construct an ethanol plant in Bukidnon.
Documents from the Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) show that an ethanol plant called South
Bukidnon Bioenergy was registered in November 2006. The chairman of
the board is Jose Ma. Zabaleta Jr., whose father is president of
Bronzeoak Philippines and a friend of the Zubiri family. The senior
Zabaleta was the executive director of the Philippine Sugar Millers
Association at the time of Republic Act 9367’s passage.
Gov. Zubiri is also the president
of the Confederation of Sugar Planters Association, a position he
has held since September 1, 2006, according to SEC documents and a
statement from the senator himself. SEC documents also reveal that
his uncle George was the senior vice-president of the confederation
from September 1, 2004 to August 31, 2006.
The confederation, which declares
its aims as developing and securing the stability of the sugar
industry, has 31 associations composed of 4,000 to 5,000 members
each. It is said to produce more than half the country’s sugar
supply.
In addition to being in the
position to supply most of the sugar needed for ethanol production,
the implementing rules and regulations of the Biofuels Act made the
confederation a member of the Bioethanol Board, a consultative body
that will work with the Sugar Regulatory Administration in
developing and implementing bioethanol-related policies.
Senator Zubiri, however, insists
that he and his family are out of the sugar business. “I
personally do not own more than 10 hectares titled to me, and same
with the rest of my family, because we were already subjected to
agrarian reform in 1988,” he said.
Declarations of real property
acquired from the Bukidnon provincial assessor’s office reveal
otherwise. They show that along with various members of the Zubiri
family who separately own portions of sugarcane land, the senator
himself has eight hectares in Maramag, Bukidnon, dedicated to sugar
crops. These sugar lands are what the Zubiris retained from their
vast landholdings, Valle Escondida in particular, after being
subjected to the agrarian reform program in the late 1980s.
Asked why his father is president
of the sugar planters association, the senator admitted that his
father still owns about 30 hectares of land planted to sugar “so
he can be part of the confederation.”
“My father is [producing
sugar], but he’s not a senator. He’s not a congressman. Under
the law, the violation is only the legislator,” he said.
Joel Villanueva, agrarian reform
officer of Maramag, said a total of 610 hectares of the Zubiris’
Valle Escondida were transferred to 281 farmer-beneficiaries.
Branzuela said certificates of
land ownership have been given to the farmer-beneficiaries, but the
Zubiris still operate on the land through a leaseback agreement. The
Zubiris, in turn, are leasing this land to food-packaging giant
Dole, he said.
Zubiri did not deny this. “The
beneficiaries still own the land. We pay them every year for the use
of the land even if it’s ours in the first place,” he said.
Gil de los Reyes, a lawyer and
former Agrarian Reform undersecretary, said it is unclear how a
leaseback agreement can be fairly made as “there are no clear
rules” on the terms of such a transaction.
Explaining the House
deliberations on the biofuels bill, Zubiri said besides industry
players and government agencies, he had consulted with Greenpeace,
Haribon and the Clean Cities Movement. “They were all consulted
when we passed this, especially the groups that pushed for cleaner
air,” he said.
Transcripts of the House meetings
and sessions, however, show that these groups were never given the
floor during the deliberations. Neither were farmers’ groups. As
much as the lawmakers mentioned the sugar boom’s benefits to
farmers in terms of employment, nothing in the House transcripts
pointed to a discussion of how exactly profits would trickle down to
grassroots farmers. These discussions came up only in the Senate and
during the bicameral conference committee meetings.
There is much to be gained from
biofuels, although that can be interpreted in two ways. On one hand,
there are gains to the public—cleaner air, lower oil prices and
higher employment rates. On the other hand, there are the more
sinister gains the lawmakers have carved out for
themselves—generous profits to be made from the boom in feedstock
plantations.
Antonio Flores, national
treasurer of the farmer’s group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP),
is careful to make a distinction between these two benefits. He
said, “Hindi naman kami tutol sa usaping development. Pero, ang
tanong namin, para kanino ang development [We aren’t against
development. But our question is, for whom is this development]?”
There are other looming issues
that are not sufficiently discussed by the Biofuels Act and its
implementing rules and regulations. These include complications with
land use, continuing environmental harms, and an even more
problematic imports situation.
The law is not specific about
land use conversion. This is possibly the trickiest aspect of the
law, as it touches on land reform and the food versus fuel debate
that was emphasized in media early this year.
Corpuz of the Sugar Regulatory
Administration expressed misgivings about the dearth of policies on
land use. The administration is tasked to check the suitability of
lands for feedstock plantation before a potential planter ventures
into planting vast tracts of sugar crops.
National Biofuels Board Deputy
Director John Jacob Gonzales enumerated these as “no competition
for food, no competition for land. Biofuels should be planted on
green fields or marginalized land. Conventional land for food crops
like rice and others should [not] be in direct competition.”
He did not say how his board
plans to prevent or discourage landowners from converting food crops
to feedstock plantations—to the displeasure of farmers like
KMP’s Flores.
“Ang posisyon namin diyan ay
yung lupa sana ay para taniman ng pagkain tulad ng mais [Our
position is that the land be used to plant food like corn],” he
said.
Besides ensuring that there will
be no competition with food, the guidelines of the National Biofuels
Board also prohibit feedstock land use that will harm the
environment.
Surprisingly, the law does not
include the Department of Environment and Natural Resources among
the members of the National Biofuels Board, despite the reported
ecological harms associated with feedstock growing.
Clearing forests to make way for
feedstock plantation has caught the attention of environmental
groups all over the world. Biofuel production in Indonesia, for
instance, is currently under scrutiny by governments and
non-government organizations worldwide.
Conversion of forests and
grasslands into palm oil plantations is said to be emitting more
carbon than gasoline usage. These conversions release 17 to 423
times more carbon than the amount reduced by biofuel use, revealed a
February 2008 study by the University of Minnesota and the Nature
Conservancy titled The Dark Side of Biofuels.
Despite an alleged surplus in
feedstock, especially in the case of sugarcane, the Philippines is
expected to fall short of the target supply needed to comply with
the mandated blends. One reason is that there aren’t enough
processing plants.
“For biodiesel, I think we have
enough supply,” Gonzales said. “But for bioethanol, we need to
set up at least 10 more factories, and each factory needs 30 million
liters. One factory alone needs at least one year and a half [to
construct].”
Gonzales said the government will
have to import bioethanol to reverse the deficit.
Deliberations in the Senate and
the bicameral conference committee had anticipated the possibility
of ethanol importation in the next few years. The Biofuels Act
allows importation when there is a local shortage.
With a looming importation
problem, potential environmental harms and a muddled land use
regulations, the Biofuels Act may be creating more problems than
solutions at a time when the country direly needs a sustainable and
effective alternative energy program.
VERA Files is put out by veteran
journalists taking a deeper look into current issues. Vera is Latin
for “true.”
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