Lawyer Vic Rodriguez took credit for flagging illegally imported sugar during his stint as President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s executive secretary in 2022. He vowed to withdraw his senatorial bid for the upcoming May 12 elections if anybody can produce a copy of Sugar Order (SO) No. 3 for crop year 2021-2022, which authorized the importation of 200,000 metric tons of refined sugar bearing his signature.
This has no basis. The order was issued five months before the Marcos administration assumed power. What was issued when Rodriguez was executive secretary was SO No. 4, authorizing the importation of 300,000 metric tons of sugar, which was retracted on the same day it was posted on the website of the Sugar Regulatory Authority (SRA) in August 2022.
On the other hand, SO No. 3 for crop year 2022-2023 was issued after Rodriguez had resigned in September of that year.
STATEMENT
In a Jan. 7 interview on ABS-CBN’s Harapan 2025, host Karen Davila asked Rodriguez why voters should vote for him despite the issues raised against him during his three-month tenure as executive secretary.
Rodriguez, who has turned critic of the Marcos administration, is vying for a Senate seat with a team endorsed by former president Rodrigo Duterte.
Davila cited the 2022 sugar importation fiasco among the controversies Rodriguez was embroiled in during the early months of the Marcos administration.
The former executive secretary replied:
“Eh, kasi kasinungalingan ‘yon. Wala akong palpak, Karen. ‘Yung sugar fiasco, ako ang nagpahuli ng mga asukal. At dito sa programa mo, daming nanonood dito, kung merong makakapagpakita ng dokumento na pinirmahan ko ‘yung Sugar Order No. 3, sa ‘yong programa Karen, exclusive mo ito, I will withdraw my candidacy for senator.”
(Because those are all lies. I have done nothing wrong, Karen. In the sugar fiasco, I ordered to have the sugar seized. And here on your program, with all its viewers, if anybody can produce a document that I signed Sugar Order #3, on your program Karen, this is your exclusive, I will withdraw my candidacy for senator.)
Source: HARAPAN 2025: Vic Rodriguez with Karen Davila | January 7, Jan. 7, 2025, watch from 6:55 to 7:47
FACT
While Rodriguez was executive secretary, SO No. 4 came out on Aug. 10, 2022 for the importation of 300,000 metric tons of refined sugar. However, the order was taken down from the SRA website that same day. He had nothing to flag because the importation did not push through.
SO No. 3 was issued on Feb. 2, 2022, nearly five months before the Marcos administration assumed power. He could not have signed the order or flagged the import. When it lapsed after Aug. 31, 2022, the end of crop year 2021-2022, some 12,913 metric tons of sugar from the order had yet to be approved by the SRA for importation.
SO No. 3 for crop year 2022-2023 was issued in October 2022 to extend the deadline for bringing in the remaining sugar. Rodriguez still could not have signed the document or stopped the supposed shipment since he had already resigned by September of that year.
Then press secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles announced on Aug. 11, 2022 that SO No. 4 was retracted because it was signed and uploaded on the SRA website without the president’s approval. She called the order “illegal” because it was neither approved by the SRA Board, which Marcos chaired as interim Agriculture secretary, nor signed by the president.
Then Agriculture undersecretary for operations Leocadio Sebastian signed above the president’s name, claiming during a House inquiry on Aug. 22, 2022 that Rodriguez had designated him as an ex-officio representative of the president as Agriculture secretary.
In an Aug. 23, 2022 Senate inquiry, Rodriguez denied issuing such instructions to Sebastian. He said he only ordered Sebastian and the SRA to draft an “import plan” for the proposed 300,000 metric tons of sugar.
