House OKs bill creating coco levy trust fund

MANILA, Philippines - The House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading a bill creating a trust fund from coconut levy collections and assets.

The House approval of Bill 6135 is expected to help resolve the issue involving the use of the martial law-era fund now estimated to be about P100 billion.

“We have resolved the issue on the use of these funds with the approval on third and final reading of Bill 6135,” Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said yesterday in a text message.

“This matter has been hanging since the fall of martial law,” he said.

Bill 6135 is titled, “An Act establishing the Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund and providing for its management and utilization.”

Quezon Rep. Angelina Tan, one of the authors of the measure, said the approval of the bill comes at a critical time for the Philippine coconut industry.

“The enactment of a law on the utilization of assets and funds from the coconut levy is not only urgent but important because our coconut farmers have long been clamoring for it,” Tan said.

“They want to see such resources preserved for their benefit and the benefit of the industry as a whole,” she said.

She said the bill ensures that coconut levy funds and assets would be a “perpetual source of financing for programs and projects for coconut farmers and industry workers.”

She added that the measure was the “product of lengthy and careful deliberations and consultations with various stakeholders.”

Tan’s province is one of the major coconut-producing areas in the country.

She said coconut farmers are among the poorest sectors of the population.

Bill 6135 mandates that all coconut levy collections and assets held by state agencies and private corporations and individuals be turned over to the Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund.

The fund would be used exclusively for the benefit of coconut farmers and industry workers.

The proposed law would create a trust fund committee to manage coconut levy collections and assets.

The committee would be composed of the secretaries of agriculture, finance, trade and industry, economic planning, and the interior and local government, administrator of the Philippine Coconut Authority, head of the National Anti-Poverty Commission and six representatives of coconut farmers – two each from Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.