Don’t touch coco funds, gov’t told

LUCENA CITY—Don’t dare touch the coconut levy fund.

The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and the Kaisahang Pambansa ng mga Magsasaka sa Koprahan (Koprahan) issued this warning to Malacañang amid reports that the Aquino administration was planning to use the coconut levy money to sustain the government’s cash dole out program.

KMP deputy secretary general Willy Marbella on Friday said they received “reliable information” that Malacañang’s National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) was “scheming” to use the multi-billion-peso coco levy funds for the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, also known as the “Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program” (4Ps).

He said that information has been circulating since last year among peasant groups and agrarian reform advocates that the NAPC was itching to take a slice from the coco levy funds, now locked in shares of stocks of the food giant San Miguel Corp. (SMC), for the CCT.

The funds invested in SMC are estimated to be now worth between P50 billion and P100 billion.

“We challenge the DA (Department of Agriculture) and PCA (Philippine Coconut Authority) to block any attempt by the Aquino administration to use the small coconut farmers’ money for the CCT,” said Marbella, also the Koprahan spokesperson, in an e-mailed statement.

He said the KMP, Koprahan and other peasant groups across the country would not allow “these so-called reformists of Peace Bonds notoriety to use the coco levy funds against small coconut farmers themselves by putting our money to the poverty-breeding and counter-insurgency-oriented CCT program.”

Flagship program

Touted as the government’s flagship poverty alleviation program, the CCT extends to the poorest of the poor families a monthly dole of P500 for health plus P300 for the education of every child below 14 years old, not exceeding three children per family. A beneficiary family would receive an average of P1,400 a month.

The Department of Budget and Management had increased the allocation for social services programs of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to P48.9 billion this year from P34.3 billion in 2011 to fund the expanded CCT program.

Early this year, the fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas urged Congress to investigate the 4Ps program following reports that even those who were not indigent were receiving the monthly cash aid.

On Wednesday, coconut farmer-leaders from across the country in a “National Small Coconut Farmers’ Summit” held here called on the President to withdrew the coconut levy funds invested in SMC and return it to the farmers.

Deposed strongman Ferdinand Marcos had imposed the levy on coconut farmers, which at one point reached as high as P100 per 100 kilograms, from 1973 to 1982.

‘Public in nature’

Farmers and the government are, however at a loss on what to do with the billions of pesos from the coco levy fund after the Supreme Court declared that the fund was public in nature.

The government wants to put it in a trust fund to be used for the revitalization of the coconut industry and to fund small interventions to farmers.

The coconut farmers’ groups, on the other hand, said farmers’ representatives should manage the money to ensure that it would go directly to them.

Last January, the Supreme Court affirmed a 2004 ruling of the Sandiganbayan awarding the 24-percent block of shares in SMC registered in the name of the Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF) and its holding companies, to the government.

The Philippine Coconut

Authority, in a recent memorandum to President Aquino, said the “quickest” way to make sure that the funds were utilized efficiently was to put it in a trust that would be cochaired by the secretaries of the Agriculture and Finance departments.

The trust fund will also have three representatives from the banking sector, five representatives from farmers’ groups, and two representatives from the CIIF.

It will also fund poverty intervention programs for small coconut farmers in the countryside, which will be implemented by the DSWD and the NAPC.