LUCENA CITY—Coconut farmers have one wish this Christmas: For President Benigno Aquino III, his uncle Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco and the Supreme Court to play Santa Claus and return billions of pesos in coconut levy fund.
“All is not lost,” said Danny Carranza, secretary general of Katarungan, a coalition of peasant groups and reform advocates in the coconut industry.
Carranza noted that workers of Hacienda Luisita had finally secured a favorable court ruling after a half century of legal battles over the dismantling of the sugar plantation owned by the Aquino-Cojuangco clan.
“There is still a ray of hope that the elusive justice will also be granted to millions of coconut farmers,” said Carranza, whose organization is among those seeking the return to the farmers funds from the levy imposed during the martial law years that were used to acquire shares of stocks in San Miguel Corp. (SMC).
The holdings—20 percent designated as SMC stocks said to be in Cojuangco’s name and 27 percent tagged as CIIF shares after state-owned companies set up under the Coconut Industry Investment Fund—were sequestered after the ouster of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.
In a ruling in April denounced by a dissenting justice as the “joke of the century,” the high court gave Cojuangco the 20-percent block of SMC shares.
But the ownership of the CIIF-SMC shares remains to be decided by the high tribunal although it had ruled that it was prima facie public having been purportedly acquired with levy money.
“We appeal to the Supreme Court to reverse its decision granting 20 percent of San Miguel shares to Mr. Cojuangco and also decide the fate of the other 27 percent shares in favor of the coconut farmers. That’s a very relevant Christmas gift that the justices can give to the farmers,” Joann Fernandez, Katarungan spokesperson, said on Sunday.
Fernandez also asked Cojuangco, the SMC chair and a major contributor to
Mr. Aquino’s presidential campaign last year, to refrain from contesting a second motion for reconsideration of the court’s April decision and yield the shares to the farmers.
“Not everything in this world is about money, Mr. Cojuangco. Open your heart this Christmas and hear the plea of the millions of coconut farmers for you to return the coco levy fund to them,” Fernandez said.
Plea to Aquino
Carranza appealed to Mr. Aquino to publicly declare his support for coconut farmers seeking the return of the levy fund.
“If President Aquino wants to bring joy to the country’s coconut farmers this Christmas, his administration should now boldly declare the government’s resolve to bring justice to the farmers by supporting their fight for the return of the levy fund,” Carranza said.
“To complete his Christmas gift package, President Aquino should also lay down the government’s comprehensive program to rehabilitate the ailing coconut industry and to end the sufferings of the farmers using the coco levy fund.”
The 3.5 million coconut farmers are among the poorest of the poor in the Philippines, studies have shown.
Two weeks ago, more than 100 coconut farmers from Quezon joined by Church people and activists groups staged a 160-kilometer march from Lucena City to Manila to dramatize their demand the return of the coco levy fund.
“Despite the hardship during the march, the farmers were all in high spirits because of the tremendous and growing support extended to them by the public. They were also able to get the attention of national government officials. They were all victorious,” Jansept Geronimo, secretary of the Coalition of Coconut Farmers of Quezon, said over the phone on Sunday.
Shares worth P200B
Marcos had imposed the levy, which at one point reached as high as P100 per 100 kilograms, from 1973 to 1982. Quezon was believed to be the biggest contributor to the fund.
Court records showed that proceeds from the tax on farm-gate sale of copra by the farmers, deposited in United Coconut Planters Bank, were used to acquire 51 percent of SMC shares in 1983—4 percent of which were subsequently converted into treasury notes.
Valued at P2 billion then, the block of shares was estimated to be worth around P200 billion now.
In December 2001, the Supreme Court declared the coco levy funds “prima facie (apparently) public funds,” but left the Sandiganbayan to determine the owner of the assets acquired with the funds.
In May 2004, the Sandiganbayan awarded the 27-percent block of CIIF-SMC shares to the government, which holds it in trust for the country’s coconut farmers.
In April, however, the Supreme Court affirmed a 2007 decision of the Sandiganbayan and declared that the 20-percent block of shares in SMC held by Cojuangco, which coconut farmers claimed were also bought using the coco levy fund, was his “exclusive property.”
The motion for reconsideration filed by coconut farmers group on the 20-percent block of shares was not only denied but was expunged by the high tribunal. A second motion for reconsideration was filed by farmers groups and the Presidential Commission on Good Government last November.