OUTSIDERS with no deep attachment to the land and blissfully unaware that the sugar industry was once a pillar of the national economy tend to view the late-February closure of the close-to-a-century-old Central Azucarera de Don Pedro (CADP) in Nasugbu, Batangas in "just-one-of-those-things" terms. And that the sugar complex, once one of the biggest producers of raw and refined sugar in the country, could always have a second life. The mill, the refinery and the buildings can be dismantled and sold. The thing of prime value is the land where the CADP sits and the sugar haciendas around it, all in Nasugbu, which is on the tourism map and where land prices have been soaring since the last decade of the past century.
And this is the general sentiment on the issue: there is no need for useless hand-wringing over the closure of CADP, despite its previous role as one of the brightest spots of the Southern Luzon economy up to the early 1970s.
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