THE farmers’ group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and the claimants movement Coco Levy Funds Ibalik sa Amin (Claim) urged incoming Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol on Monday to review the groups’ seven-point proposal for the disposition of the multi-billion coconut levy funds.
The two groups clarified that “small coconut farmers are not demanding P20,000 cash” in response to reports that Piñol is “not in favor of the P20,000 per coconut farmer cash distribution of the coco levy funds and in support of the use of the funds for social benefits.”
“Small coconut farmers are not demanding P20,000. They are demanding the cash distribution of the coco levy money through social benefits, including but not limited to pension benefits, medical and hospitalization benefits, maternity benefits, and educational assistance including scholarships, among others,” said KMP secretary-general Antonio Flores.
“In fact, the demands for social benefits are in harmony with incoming Agriculture Secretary Piñol’s idea,” Flores said.
“The P20,000 cash per coconut farmer is a pigment of the corrupt imagination of a [returning] senator who is hell-bent in pushing the privatization of small coconut farmers’ money,” said Arvin Borromeo, Claim’s Quezon coordinator referring to senator-elect Francis Pangilinan’s who said that “if the P72 billion in the national treasury would be distributed outright to 3 million coconut farmers, each farmer would get only around P20,000.”
“Pangilinan’s cheap and dirty intrigue of P20,000 per coconut farmer is obviously aimed to divide the ranks of small coconut farmers and a desperate ploy to privatize the fund,” Flores said.
“Pangilinan’s so-called perpetual trust fund scheme is designed to deny small coconut farmers, the legitimate owners of the fund, to exercise control and ownership rights over their money,” he said.
KMP and Claim reiterated calls for the creation of a Genuine Small Coconut Farmers’ Fund coupled by a “Small Coconut Farmers’ Council” to thwart attempts to plunder the more than P72 billion coco levy money held by the government and “to ensure the cash distribution through other socio-economic benefits for small coconut farmers.”
Flores said “establishing small coconut farmers’ control over the funds is crucial for the legitimate owners to benefit from their own money that includes cash and other social benefits.”
“The coco levy fund collection was a scam. A nationwide extortion and schematic plunder orchestrated by the Marcos-Cojuangco clique,” Borromeo said adding: “having control (through the farmers’ fund and council) shall also pave the way for the turnover of coconut oil mills and other coco levy funded assets to small coconut farmers because these assets were acquired using our money.”