Guingona hits coco levy order

Senate Minority Leader Teofisto Guingona Jr. warned yesterday that some P65 billion in public funds may go to a private entity if the government implements Pre-sident Estrada’s executive order providing for the establishment of a trust fund for coconut farmers.

Guingona told reporters the coconut levy funds belong to the government as these were collected from copra vendors during martial law under Presidential Decrees 276 and 414.

Last Nov. 8, the President issued Executive Order No. 313 which provides for the establishment of a trust fund for coconut farmers, ostensibly to revive the coconut industry.

Critics said the order favored the President’s poli-tical patron, businessman Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., head of food and beverage giant San Miguel Corp.

Guingona said that in 1975, then President Ferdinand Marcos empowered a group headed by Cojuangco to "possess, collect and utilize" the coconut levy fund.

The Cojuangco group used the fund to set up the United Coconut Planters Bank and to buy the majority shares in San Miguel, Guingona said.

He noted that Executive Order 313 will allow the coconut levy fund "to finally get lost into the private fortunes" because the trust committee will have authority to use the fund without going through the Commission on Audit.

Under the executive order, government agencies like the Presidential Commission on Good Government and the Office of the Solicitor General must lift the sequestration order over the coconut levy funds even before the courts could rule on the fund’s ownership, he added.

Earlier, the leader of a group claiming to represent 3.4 million coconut farmers and agricultural workers called on President Estrada to "unfreeze" the coconut levy funds.

On the other hand, Cojuangco and big coconut producers, represented by the Philippine Coconut Producers Federation Inc., said that the coconut levy is a private fund.

But small coconut farmers support the stand of Guingona that the fund is public since it was collected as a government tax during the Marcos administration.

In deciding the matter, the Supreme Court ruled that the fund was a "private fund clothed with a public character."