Recto calls for swift action on Marcos-era coco levy fund

Sen. Ralph Recto. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

One “unfinished” business of the 1986 Edsa revolution is how to plow back the billions in coco levy funds to the millions of farmers who paid them, Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto said on Friday.

“Thirty years have passed and the farmers are still waiting for the money, the fund is still frozen, and the implementation of the executive orders mandating its use has been stopped by the courts,” Recto said in a statement.

“Patay na ang mga nagbayad ng levy, patay na rin ang mga puno ng niyog na pinagkuhanan ng copra, pati yung proseso ng kung papaano ibalik ang levy sa sector ng niyog sa kasalukuyan ay mukhang patay na rin,” he said.

(Those who have paid the levy had already died, along with the coconut trees where copra is harvested, as well as the process of returning the levy to the coconut sector which now appears dead, too.)

READ: What Went Before: Coco levy fund

The senator then likened the funds “to a frozen buko salad which farmers can see but can’t eat.”

“We must push the reboot button to restart the process while putting more regular funds to rejuvenate the coconut industry, especially in the 41,662 hectares in Yolanda-hit areas where 34 million trees were destroyed,” he said.

Recto said a government agency estimated that 90 percent of the 3.4 million coconut industry workers are poor and 44 million coconut trees, or one in seven, are old and must be replaced.

Aggravating this poverty picture and the court-ordered freeze in the coco levy disposition, he said, is the cut in the government’s coconut replanting budget.

From P4.1 billion in 2015 and P2.4 billion in 2014, Recto said, the Philippine Coconut Authority’s (PCA) budget subsidy from the national government even went down to P1.27 billion this year.

“Na-Yolanda na, nagka-El Niño pa sa pondo,” he said.

(Not just hit by Yolanda, its funds evem ravaged by El Niño.)

Birthed by Republic Act 6260, and expanded by four Marcos decrees, the coco levy was imposed on copra sales purportedly to raise capital investment for the coconut industry.

By 1986, Recto said, the total amount collected from the various coconut levies from 1971 to 1982 amounted to P9.7 billion. The money was later sequestered by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), which also triggered a long legal struggle for its ownership.

The Sandiganbayan rendered a partial summary judgment on May 7, 2004, declaring that the six Coconut Industry Investment Fund – Oil Mills Group (CIIF-OMG) companies, their 14 holding firms, and the CIIF-OMG block of SMC shares as “owned by the Government in trust for all the coconut farmers.”

 READ: Sandiganbayan thumbs down partial judgment on coco levy case

The total amount of coco levy fund released for public dispensation was estimated to be worth P77 billion including interest when the SC issued the ruling but the senator said there were also estimates that the present value of all coco levy assets was in the neighborhood of P100 billion.

“Because we are clueless about the real amount, an audit is in order,” he said.

Following the SC order, Recto said, bills were filed in the House of Representatives and the Senate on how to judiciously and transparently dispose the levy for the benefit of coconut farmers. But Malacañang, he said, suddenly issued twin orders governing its use in March last year.

Executive Order 179 provides for the inventory, privatization and transfer of coco levy assets in favor of government while Executive Order 180 mandates the transfer of the funds to government for an “Integrated Coconut Industry Roadmap Program.”

While the issue is pending before the high tribunal, Recto called for increased funding for the coconut replanting and intercropping program.

“There’s no TRO on this,” said the senator. CDG

READ: Recto warns of misuse of coco levy fund