MANILA, Philippines ? Small coconut farmers? groups Thursday decried the Supreme Court decision approving the conversion of 750 million sequestered common shares in beverage giant San Miguel Corp. into preferred shares.
They said the ruling ?reeks of political accommodation? and ?elevates the interests of Malacańang and Eduardo Cojuangco above that of the small coconut farmers.?
Omi Royandoyan, executive director of Centro Saka, said the decision failed to take into account the 23-year struggle of coconut farmers for social justice and would hinder their efforts to recover the ill-gotten wealth of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, particularly the assets that were illegally bought with the coco levy funds.
The farmers quoted from the dissenting opinion of Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales who warned that once the shares are converted, the government ?surrenders its final arsenal in combating the maneuverings to frustrate the recovery of ill-gotten wealth.?
Converting the common shares into preferred shares will mean that the government will lose its voting rights in San Miguel.
Royandoyan said the new decision effectively reversed an earlier Supreme Court ruling that struck down the proposed conversion of the same bloc of shares into Treasury shares.
?The shares are sequestered. Thus, any move to permanently alter the character of these shares should not be allowed. Yet the Supreme Court has allowed this to happen. This is a grave injustice,? Royandoyan said.
He also decried the haste with which the case was decided, noting that decisions in cases relating to the coco levy fund took a long time, ?given the scope, complexity and the way in which it affects political interests in Philippine politics.?
He said the ruling showed a lack of appreciation for the struggle of the coconut farmers to recover the coco levy funds and ?the manipulations of Danding Cojuangco.?
?The court needs to understand that the interest at play here does not simply rest with the government. The coconut farmers have a substantial and direct interest in the matter,? he said.
All boils down to control
Royandoyan said the ?whole transaction boils down to control,? with Cojuangco eventually getting hold of the converted shares.
He also dismissed the claim of Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) Commissioner Ricardo Abcede that the majority of coconut farmers were for the conversion and that only a ?noisy minority? were against it.
He said the biggest and largest coconut farmers organizations which have been fighting for the recovery of the coco levy funds were left out of the consultations by the PCGG.
He said the group that the PCGG consulted had been discredited for ?[collaborating] with Cojuangco in compromising and hoodwinking the public about the public character of the fund? during the Estrada administration.
The case concerns the government?s 24 percent stake in San Miguel (or 750 million shares) which the coconut farmers are claiming because they were bought with funds from a forced tax imposed on them by the dictator Marcos.
The shares are part of a 47-percent bloc of San Miguel shares that the PCGG sequestered in 1986 claiming that they were illegally acquired by Cojuangco using the coco levy funds which he administered during the Marcos regime.
In 2004, the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court awarded 27 percent of the contested shares (since reduced to 24 percent because of dilution), originally held by 14 companies under the Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF), a holding company controlled by Cojuangco.
Cojuangco had won provisional control over the remaining 20 percent during the Estrada administration, allowing him to return as San Miguel chair and chief executive officer after a 12-year absence. The anti-graft court has yet to decide on the ownership of the shares.
