MANILA, Philippines—Just a few weeks after the Supreme Court allowed the conversion of more than 750 million sequestered coco levy fund shares in the San Miguel Corp. (SMC) into non-voting preferred shares, the government is seeking to convert another 27 million more of its stake in the food and beverage giant.

In an urgent motion, the Office of the Solicitor General, in behalf of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), asked the high court to also allow the conversion of common shares of the PCGG-Industry Trust Fund (ITF)-Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) in SMC into preferred shares.

The shares involved are equivalent to about 0.8 percent of SMC’s 3.2 billion total listed shares, being held in trust by the PCGG for the CARP.

The earlier block of 750 million shares that the Supreme Court had approved for conversion into non-voting preferred shares is equivalent to 23.4 percent of SMC’s stocks.

The OSG said the conversion of the PCGG-ITF-CARP shares would be under the same circumstances and conditions as the first tranche of 750 million shares and would also share the same benefits and advantages of the first conversion.

The PCGG-ITF-CARP is a vehicle used by the PCGG to have direct access to part of the cash dividends from SMC as well as the proceeds if and when the government block is privatized, a government source explained.

“Instead of the funds going through the Department of Finance itself, it will go directly to them,” the official said.

A group of coconut farmers Wednesday denounced the PCGG for seeking the conversion of yet another block of sequestered SMC shares.

Omi Royandoyan, executive director of Centro Saka, said the agency should have waited for the tribunal to decide first on the motion for reconsideration that the farmers had filed against the high court’s Sept. 17 ruling allowing the conversion of the 750 million shares.

He said that converting the sequestered common shares into non-voting preferred shares was “extremely disadvantageous” to the government and coconut farmers. With a report from Doris C. Dumlao