Arroyo names coco levy fund overseer

President Arroyo announced yesterday the appointment of former agriculture secretary Leonardo Montemayor as chairman of the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB)— Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF) that will immediately manage and oversee the disposition of the P770-million earnings from the coconut levy funds.

The President also said that the same team will take control of the P30 billion in Marcos ill-gotten wealth that the Supreme Court had ordered channeled to agrarian reform and coconut farmers. This is expected to be released after the Supreme Court rules with finality on a motion for reconsideration filed by the Marcos heirs.

The funds include money recovered from a secret Swiss bank account of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos which the Supreme Court ordered used to finish the agrarian reform program. The P770 million was earnings from the coconut levy funds used by business tycoon Eduardo Cojuangco in capitalizing the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB).

The Chief Executive made the announcement while addressing leaders of the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) during its 50th anniversary celebration in Pasay City.

The President acknowledged that FFF founder, the late Dean Jeremias Montemayor and father of her former farming czar, helped her father, the late President Diosdado Macapagal, draft the Agriculture Land Reform Code (RA 3844) of 1963, the first major social legislation that jumpstarted the country’s agrarian reform program.

Montemayor’s new appointment was seen by farmer leaders as an indication of the President’s trust in his honesty and integrity whose 18-month stewardship of the agriculture department was not tainted with any charges of graft and corruption and saw the sector grow to a new high of 4.5 percent a year.

"It would be a fitting legacy if the children, President Gloria Macapagal and Secretary Leonie Montemayor, would team up anew to complete the agrarian reform program started by their fathers," said Rep. Dioscoro Granada, farming sector’s representative to Congress.

Granada said he is optimistic that Montemayor’s appointment will signal his return to the Arroyo Cabinet either in the Department of Agrarian Reform or the Department of Agriculture whose incumbent secretaries are reportedly eyeing senatorial seats. Montemayor was replaced by Agriculture Secretary Luis "Cito" Lorenzo in December 2002.