I hope everyone had a meaningful, simple yet sensible Christmas Day celebration in keeping with the President's message to the nation. I trust that your Noche Buena salo-salo and reunion with loved ones went well. So, I wish your New Year's Day to be as good or even better.

For a gourmet with a sweet tooth like me, Christmastime is synonymous with a generous serving of treats, regardless if these have become more expensive. After all, the retail price of white sugar remains elevated. It hovered between P95 and P110 per kilo in Metro Manila public markets in November, based on a Sugar Regulatory Authority's monitoring report. In supermarkets, the price went as low as P70 to a high of P115 a kilo.

The commodity's unstable price is questionable because the country is still at the peak of harvest and milling season. Even more confounding is the government's decision to import another 64,000 metric tons of sugar. Obviously, the imported 150,000 metric tons in October did not lead to price stabilization at all.

Minimum access volume

Local producers and farmers have appealed to President Marcos Jr., who also sits as agriculture secretary, to reconsider the memorandum order. They contend that given the current high sugar inventory coupled with lower 'millgate' prices, our country has an adequate supply of sugar. Thus, the importation through Minimum Access Volume or MAV is unwarranted.

What exactly is MAV? I sent a message to Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban requesting him to explain in layman's terms what the mechanism is all about. This is for the benefit of my Facebook and YouTube followers. He never got back to me.

Under the Agricultural Tariffication Act of 1996, MAV refers to the volume of a specific agricultural product (ex. rice, sugar, pork, chicken meat, corn, live cattle) that may be imported with a lower tariff.