Law for P75-B coco levy disposal sought

MANILA, Philippines - A law is needed for the disposition of the P75-billion coco levy fund to its beneficiaries, Sen. Francis Pangilinan said yesterday.

Pangilinan, chair of the Senate committee on agriculture and food, issued the statement after the Confederation of Coconut Farmers Organizations of the Philippines announced it was set to withdraw its petition before the Supreme Court that led to the issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the release of the funds.  

The move was seen by certain quarters as a go-signal for the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) to undertake the disposition of the fund, but Pangilinan said the TRO remains in effect until the SC lifts it. 

“More importantly, the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the disposition of the coco levy fund itself requires legislation,” Pangilinan said.

“This insistence on a law is contained all throughout the high court’s January 2012 decision, which itself is a result of decades of litigation,” he said, referring to the ruling that declared the coco levy fund as public money.

He noted that the SC ruled that the presidential decrees that gave the PCA the power to distribute the funds are unconstitutional as they were “clearly an undue delegation of legislative powers.”

The Supreme Court concluded that the “sequestered assets are ill-gotten wealth”; the “transfer of the shares to the more than one million of supposed coconut farmers was tainted with illegality”; and PCA’s disposing of the bank shares “totally disregard(ed) the national policy for which the funds were created. This is clearly an undue delegation of legislative powers.”