Several labor groups expressed opposition to the government's plan to import 450,000 metric tons of refined sugar into the country this year.

"The gravity of the possible injury cannot be underestimated as the sugar industry, directly and indirectly, impacts the lives of around 3 million Filipino," said the labor leaders and their allies in the sugar-producing province of Negros Occidental in a signed manifesto.

The importation will affect the welfare of farmers including farm and mill workers in the sugar industry.

"It will condemn to economic bankruptcy the sugar industry’s 80,000 planters and the employment and livelihood loss of its 700,000 agricultural workers, 26,000 mill workers, and some 3 million downstream dependents," they added.

The declaration will be sent to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as well as to the Department of Agriculture (DA), Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), and sugar planters’ groups.

Meanwhile, Presidential Communications Secretary Cheloy Velicaria-Garafil assured that they consider local farmers and producers in the implementation of importation programs.

“It is the mandate of the President that we should make sure that the local producers will not be affected, and in turn, that the local producers will be made to produce more,” she said.