Both the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and the Coco Levy Fund Ibalik sa Amin welcomed the Supreme Court (SC) verdict on the use of the 22-percent share of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) purchased using the contribution of small farmers to the fund.
The SC ruled that the proceeds of the levy “shall be used only for the benefit of all coconut farmers.”
The High Court said the issue had been settled in its September 2012 ruling, when it said that the 753,848,312 shares in SMC constitute public funds and “shall be used only for the benefit of all coconut farmers and for the development of the coconut industry.”
Voting 11-0, the SC cited the importance of concluding the protracted litigation and ending “the 27-year battle for the judicial recovery of assets acquired through illegal conversion of the coconut levies collected during the Marcos regime into private funds.”
KMP Chairman Rafael Mariano said “the latest SC ruling is a fruit of the coconut farmers’ struggle to reclaim the funds from those who plundered and benefited from it. The ball on how to return the money to its rightful owners is now in Aquino’s court.”
“In fact, the Aquino administration has been already holding the more than P75-billion coco-levy money from the Coconut Industry Investment Fund [CIIF] shares in SMC for more than three years now and is reportedly already using its interests and earnings,” he added.
“However, [Mr.] Aquino has proven that he himself is the biggest stumbling block in the coconut farmers’ decades-long struggle to reclaim their money,” Mariano said.
“The President’s Executive Orders 179 and 180 that seek to privatize the coco-levy funds and assets would diminish and deny small coconut farmers of their legitimate claim over the funds.”