For so Growing in a province where sugarcane planting is widespread, my mother gained a rich childhood memory with sugar. According to her, she used to play around the farm and at times helped the harvesters put the sugarcane cuttings on the wooden rollers; under it were catch basins with cylinders directed to an earthen vessel (kawa) on top of a flame. She waited for several minutes to an hour (depending on the size of the flame and the amount of the extract) as it continuously boiled until slightly thick and then she put it in a cut banana trunk.

They used the banana trunk because its thickness would prevent them from getting burns and most importantly it slowed down the caramelization of the sugar. My mother continued her story but now with actions, that she stretched vigorously the dense and sticky sugar-clot that according to her looked like the known tira-tira (a traditional candy, popular in sugar plantation regions of the Philippines.) She used to eat as much as she could, but only until the sugar solidifies which she would bring home to my lola who would later crush with a mortar and pestle. With this fruitful conversation, my curiosity inspired me to this column on the global histographics of sugar to the Philippines.

Researching about sugar, one should start on sugarcane, and records show that the sugarcane’s origin is not certain but is believed that it was first found in the Northeastern India and in the Southern Pacific area. In 1800 B.C. sugarcane cultivation reached and proliferated in China. As it became established in China, it crawled out to other countries in a fast pace, because the Chinese during that time were already known as international traders. For Mediterranean countries, it was the Arabs who were responsible for its spread and were actually the ones who developed the earliest refining process. However, New World sugar came about when the Portuguese and Spanish navigators introduced the sugarcane cultivation in the 15th Century, under mandates of conquering campaigns as expansions of power, and nations.

Based on early records of Philippine Heritage accounts, a sailing vessel from Celebes brought sugarcane to Mindanao some 4,000 years before Christian era. However, facts about this find may be blurred if solid proof is needed.

There was no record when sugar making came to the knowledge of the natives but it was presumed that it was the Spaniards who encouraged them to be able to lessen the importation expenses from China. But, sugar was not produced in the country for a time because it was being imported from Mexico until the early years of the 16th Century.

According to the chronicles of Pigafetta, when Magellan arrived in the Southern Philippine islands in 1521, the natives, headed by Rajah Calanao, served them refreshments made of sugarcane and the same thing happened to other Spanish explorers in Northern Luzon.

In the early 17th Century, sugar plantations came to the picture as it sprouted throughout the Philippine Archipelago. With the increase of sugar production, the Chinese monopoly of sugar declined (Chinese sold the rock sugar called cande for 8 reales per 25 pounds, which only the wealthy families could afford). During the mid-17th Century, refined sugar was already available in the country but only the religious power-entities were given permits to produce. They controlled and stocked their sugar on warehouses until the prices increased in Manila.

In modern Philippine political economics, sugarcane farmers are still farmers. Rich plantation owners continue to get rich, as sugar continues to overprice.

As early as prehistoric times, the natives already knew the techniques for growing sugarcane, furthermore they already experimented on some products out of the sugarcane extracts –but the only thing they didn’t do was sugar.

The following were the sugar cane products that came from its extracts:

Intus – In the 14th Century a traveler mentioned about his observation that the natives were fond of turning cane juice into wine. A Jesuit missionary attested to this observation in the 17th Century, he said that in Visayas, he saw the people make alcoholic beverages by mixing cane juice with a particular bark of a tree and put it in a jar to ferment. According to John Larkin, a known anthropologist, the mentioned fermentation method is still being practiced up to this time by the Bagobos of Mindanao.

Panocha – a kind of brown sugar that is crystallized with limewater and placed inside coconut shells.

Basi – a sugar brandy that became so popular in the 18th Century. The Spanish government issued an ordinance prohibiting the production and drinking of this beverage that resulted to an uprising in Ilocos called the "Basi Revolt".

Cande – rock sugar sold by Chinese traders.

Azukar Rosado – beverage made from caramelized sugar and citrus juice (some kind of a soft drink at that time).

Aside from the mentioned products during the early days (Pre-colonial times) there were other uses of sugarcane which are still being practiced at present – mothers use it as a pacifier for babies, most food preserves can’t do without cane syrup and some eat it simply to satisfy hunger.

Sugar is really the sweetest thing that was discovered, but it also brought some bitter events as it became a representation of social status of a family and resulted in pockets of resistance, left-leaning ruptures, and revolts. Talking about sugar, my father would

recall his nice experiences working inside a sugar plantation, for my mother – sugar is always a sweet memory of childhood, but for me – a sweet eating habit as I put sugar on my plate of plain rice (a solution when one doesn’t have a viand) this eventually became my comfort food to date.

Again and again, even in modern times, one can always find cheer with a plate of rice, topped with sugar—more so, as a survival food of people in poverty-infested areas of the Philippines.