Palace: Dole program won’t use coco levy fund

Malacañang on Saturday denied it was going to dip into the contested coconut levy funds to finance its conditional cash transfer (CCT) program.

Palace deputy spokesperson Abigail Valte the allegations made by militant peasant groups, saying the administration had enough funds to support the CCT, a social welfare program that aims to dole out money to some three million families that keep their children in school and visit health centers regularly.

“There’s no truth to that. The funding for our CCT comes from the national budget and a part of it from a loan that we took out two years ago,” Valte said in yesterday’s radio briefing over state-run radio dzRB.

Valte said 2.1 million families would benefit from the CCT through national budget allocations while 900,000 other families would get receive cash from the loan.

The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas and the Kaisahang Pambansa ng mga Magsasaka sa Koprahan earlier told Malacañang to “lay off the coco levy funds” amid reports the administration was planning to use the contested funds for the CCT.

KMP deputy secretary general Willy Marbella on Saturday said the peasant groups received “reliable information” that the National Anti-Poverty Commission was planning to use the multibillion-peso coco levy fund for the CCT.

Marbella said the information has been circulating since last year among peasant groups and agrarian reform advocates.

The coco levy funds have been the subject of years of litigation between the government, San Miguel Corp. and coco levy-funded institutions. The Supreme Court recently ruled that the coco levies, imposed during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, were public funds.

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

“We challenge the Department of Agriculture and Philippine Coconut Authority to block any attempt by the Aquino administration to use the small coconut farmers’ money for the CCT,” Marbella said.