Sugar Economics
Can the discussion of refined vs. unrefined be broken?
Part 1 of 2 in this Philippine sugar series.
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Sugar Economics
A question that automatically surfaces when I’m choosing what to eat is the self-scrutinizing debate of, “Is this good or bad?” I’ll then attempt to justify the nutritional value or decipher the ingredients list of whatever it is I’m planning to consume. One seemingly obvious paradigm is what I’ve assumed of sugar.
White sugar is bad!
Brown sugar is better!
But organic, unrefined sugar is superior!
When did I suddenly construct this sugar hierarchy? Never mind the industry’s decades-long marketing ploys and suppression of scientific research. While I’m tempted to Zoom a friend and ask for the molecular breakdown of each, I decided I’d rather not bore you with sucrose structures. It did, however, make me think of the type of sugar I consume. Especially now, when refined sugar in Manila has reached unprecedented prices, spiking as high as P115 (~$2 USD) per kilo, more than double its usual price.
For those of us who have the luxury of contemplating between refined and unrefined sugars at the store, a dollar difference may not feel like much. But for many households in the Philippines, where consumerism still heavily revolves around tingi (purchasing items bit by bit i.e. one shampoo packet, one coffee sachet, a packet of oil, etc due to financial circumstances), a few pesos goes a long way. I digress, but that itself is another topic for conversation.
I’m not here to encourage sugar consumption. In all honesty, the less we eat of it, the better. But I’m not here to discourage it either. After all, I can’t deny that the Filipino palate has an obvious penchant for sweetness (and yes, I do add sugar to my spaghetti sauce). Even Filipino food writers Ige Ramos and Doreen Gamboa Fernandez have dedicated whole chapters to our sugary inclinations.
Sugar, then, seems unavoidable in Philippine cuisine but why do I know so little about it? I decided I no longer wanted to be confined within the limits of this sugar hierarchy. Now the question is, how can sugar go beyond the usual conversation of refined versus unrefined?
But first, some history
Sugar cane has widely been cultivated in the Philippines. William Henry Scott—a US historian who extensively studied the Cordilleras and pre-Hispanic Philippines— described a primitive way of sugar extraction in sixteenth-century Visayas, primarily for consumption of intus or sugarcane wine:
“Sugarcane juice was extracted with a simple one-man press… The juice was boiled, preferably in a cast-iron baong that held as much as 15 liters, to half its volume. It was then sinubaw, and a small bundle of kabarawan bark was added as seasoning. When cool, it was stored in Chinese jars and left to ferment and age as intus or kilang.
Visayans did not make sugar itself. Even after the introduction of the Chinese sugar mill… when sugar was for sale to those who could afford it, intus remained the main use for sugarcane.”
While sugarcane can grow throughout most of the Philippines, the 18th century gave rise to sugar economies concentrated in central Luzon (Laguna, Pamapanga, Batangas) and the Visayas (Iloilo, Negros). For the sake of length in this essay, I have chosen to focus on Negros, which has been enthroned with the title of sugar capital of the Philippines.
One important stimulus in the boom of the Visayas sugar economy took place in 1855: the arrival of British purveyor Nicholas Loney at the opening of foreign commerce. A quite amusing description of Loney paints him as “the single most potent force in bringing down the Iloilo textile industry and building up the Negros sugar industry.” Loney responded to Manila’s sugar demand the way his predecessors likely would have: I must capitalize, of course! He supplied machinery and built infrastructure to facilitate efficiency of sugar production. His actions would forever reshape the agricultural landscape of Negros into becoming the sugar bowl of the Philippines.
The combination of increasing global sugar demand, accessible milling equipment, and injection of capital by foreign banks and investors into sugar production drew migrants to Negros. Most were Indios from the weaving villages of Panay Island, displaced by the fall of the textile industry under Loney as well as Chinese mestizos (who became hacenderos or large plantation owners) from Molo and Jaro, districts of Iloilo City.
Thus began the sugar race (and scheming) for land acquisition—often through bribery, violence, and manipulation— ushering in the era of the Negros sugar haciendas, which still exist today. From the 1870s and onwards, sugar emerged as the region’s lifeblood. Soon enough, Negros eclipsed Luzon as the country’s main sugar source. By the 1890s, Negros transformed from a relatively sparse island, to “one in which most of prime land was held in fact and in law by a small, elite class of planters who had come from outside the island.” Allured by the promise of sweet fortune, natives of Negros soon became entangled with the hacienda labor force, only to be pulled into a system leaving them dependent.
Crop of oppression (in the words of Ige Ramos)
Sugar is a highly intensive crop. To fill in labor supply during harvest season, sacadas or seasonal labors, were brought into Negros from neighboring provinces and areas. The commitment of Negros to sugar production shifted available land away from subsistence crops like rice and reconfigured the economy into a ticking monocrop time bomb. With no access to farm land (and thus food), workers became dependent on sugar production for their livelihood.
I will emphasize that sugar laborers during this time collectively dissented. They demanded better working conditions and protested by burning cane fields. In 1900, Papa Isio (son of a sacada and to whom Philippine-produced Don Papa rum pays tribute) led resistance movements that fought for liberation against these colonial structures.
“At that time sugar workers looked upon the non-planting of food crops in Negros as the source of their poverty and hunger… Instead of rallying for increased wages, as workers in other places at that period did, those sugar workers led by Papa Isio campaigned for lands to be planted with food.”
Papa Isio surrendered to American authorities in 1907, but would remain an important figure and catalyst in the movement for agrarian reform.
After the Philippines gained its independence from the US on July 4, 1946, America continued its hold on Philippine agriculture through strong market manipulation. But I suppose in more favored words, economic “rehabilitation.” A treaty approved in 1955 known as the Laurel-Langley Agreement allowed the Philippines to enjoy relaxed sugar tariffs and high privileged quotas into the US.
Philippine sugar surged into the US market. In the mid-1900s, sugar became the highest earning crop export of the Philippines, particularly in Negros. This guaranteed sugar market deepened the pockets of Negros hacenderos and led to one of the widest socioeconomic stratifications in Philippines history: the sugar barons and the native laborers they ruled over. Although hacienda owners flourished, the treaty tied the Philippine economy to the US market.
The Laurel-Langley agreement expired in 1974 and with it, the backbone of the Philippine sugar economy. With its biggest market gone and with the rise of European beet sugar that led to over-saturation of the global sugar market, the Philippine sugar industry collapsed. Negros, with its poor agricultural diversification, plummeted into crises and famine flooded the so called Sugarlandia.
Reframing our (hi)stories
The ills of the past are still present. While there are ongoing efforts for reform, it didn’t feel right to begin boasting about local Philippine sugars while under the lull of historical amnesia. Would the country’s agricultural wounds have entered my consciousness had I pined over sugars stamped with “unrefined” or “organic” as if they were the definitive choice for good? When did labels draw our attention away from a wider world view? Is our preference worth the deflection of everything else?
Yes, I would say choosing unrefined native sugars is good—fantastic, even—but in what other ways can our definition of good morph beyond our largely individualistic interests?
Maybe good means supporting locally-run organizations that empower Philippine farmers and laborers with skills and accessible resources. Maybe good means recognizing the value of those who provide our food and demanding reform in systems to reflect how essential they really are. Maybe good can mean paying fair prices so more of our local producers can thrive outside of highly exploitive and industrialized food systems.
After all, the global sugar trade remains rife with tariffs, quotas, and subsidies— a complex web of terms that largely goes over my head but I’ve somewhat distilled down to: political interests swayed by a “special” few that erode competitive opportunities for the developing world. The greatest irony is that as US citizens, we pay for some of these sugar subsidies under the guise of taxes. Oh capitalism, how cunning of you.
Sugar may be one of the most commonplace ingredients, but it’s far from trivial. If convenience is the biggest mask of the past, then perhaps curiosity is the biggest antidote for amnesia. The question of unrefined versus refined is an understandable starting point—I guess “sourced using non-extractive capitalistic methods” is a bit much for the every day grocer—but what stories do we learn when we choose to engage outside of usual choices and narratives?
The histories I share aren't meant to echo our colonial past. Think of it more as a nudge meant to challenge our current framework of understanding. How does tapping into these (hi)stories change how we interact with the world? What lessons surface when we place othered histories at the center of our questioning? Perhaps Gideon Lasco says it best:
“Local histories can also serve as testaments to past injustices that their perpetrators—or their descendants—would rather have us forget. Local histories, moreover, can foster a deeper appreciation of our country’s greatness. Perhaps our youth will be encouraged to contribute more to their communities if they realize how much their forebears sacrificed for them.
By pursuing and promoting local histories, we can help do justice to an archipelago inhabited by so many but represented by so few.”
Current meryenda: Tupig from a vendor in Solano, Nueva Vizcaya
When my tita comes back to Manila from the province, she always brings a bag of tupig— kakanin typically made with glutinous rice flour, muscovado, buko strips and gata wrapped in banana leaves and charred. She always buys them in bundles from the same vendor on the side of the tollway after passing through the dizzying roads of Malico. When I eat it, I am thankful for her safe journey to the metropolis.
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