Published on Monday, 20 May 2013 20:49
Written by Marvyn Benaning and Jonathan Mayuga
THE Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and the claimants movement Coco Levy Funds Ibalik sa Amin (CLAIM) on Monday assailed Malacañang not only for trying to use money that doesn’t belong to it but also to “reward” provinces that backed its gubernatorial candidates in the May 13 elections.
KMP and CLAIM said the exclusion of two of the biggest coconut-producing provinces from the priority areas that would supposedly benefit from the coconut-levy funds “shows Malacanang’s sinister plan to use small coconut farmers’ money for political purposes.”
In a memorandum to agency heads dated April 25, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) excluded the provinces of Quezon and Laguna and listed only 12 provinces on the “Integrated Coconut Industry and Poverty Reduction Road Map” as “priority areas for program convergence [tenurial reform, agricultural productivity programs, industry development, infrastructure development, social services and climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction and mitigation measures] in the 2014 budget.”
“In spite of Quezon’s and Laguna’s small coconut farmers’ contribution to the coconut-levy funds, they were arbitrarily excluded by the Aquino administration from the priority provinces that will supposedly benefit from the coco-levy funds,” said KMP Deputy Secretary-General Willy Marbella.
For his part, Katipunan ng mga Samahang Magbubukid sa Timog Katagalugan (Kasama-TK) Spokesman Nestor Villanueva said “in 1975, the early years of the forced collection of the coco-levy funds from small coconut farmers, 481,750 hectares of lands or 21 percent of the country’s total area devoted to coconut is in Southern Tagalog.”
“In Quezon province alone, 204,000 coconut farmer-families are dependent on over 388,664 hectares of coco lands,” Villanueva added.
The 12 priority provinces listed on the DBM memorandum signed by Budget Secretary Florencio Abad are: Camarines Sur, Masbate, Eastern Samar, Northern Samar, Samar, Zamboanga del Norte, Davao Oriental, North Cotabato, Sarangani, Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur.
“The list exposes Aquino’s ‘coconut industry road map’ is not meant to return the coco-levy funds to coconut farmers. The road map is nothing but a counter-insurgency measure and electoral fund seed banking operation for 2016,” Marbella said.
He noted as well that “majority of the provinces listed as priorities are hotbeds of insurgency.”
Marbella, also CLAIM national coordinator, said “the exclusion of ‘opposition provinces’ from the priority areas to be funded by the coco-levy funds shows Malacañang’s sinister plan to use small coconut farmers’ money for political purposes.”
He added that, “the exclusion also means that as early as April, the Aquino administration already conceded that Quezon and Laguna are bailiwicks of the opposition, particularly governors Jay-jay Suarez and ER Ejercito.”
“The Aquino administration and his coco-levy fund mafia are itching to use our money for graft-ridden programs like the controversial Conditional Cash Transfer [CCT] Program, the ‘Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program [4Ps] and the bogus Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms [CARPer],” Marbella added.
Kasama-TK’s Villanueva dared Suarez and Ejercito to back small coconut farmers in opposing Aquino’s coconut industry roadmap.
“Aquino’s road map for the coconut industry is a recipe for plunder. We challenge Suarez and Ejercito to link arms with small coconut farmers in opposing the Aquino administration’s plan to plunder the coco-levy funds,” the peasant leader said.
In a dialogue earlier this year between CLAIM and the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), the commission said the P56.5 billion from the 27 percent from San Miguel Corp. is deposited in escrow by the PCGG at the Bureau of Treasury.
The P13.5-billion dividend earning is with the United Coconut Planters Bank deposited as a special deposit account and earning between 3.5 percent and 3.6-percent interest.
The KMP and CLAIM reiterated demands for the immediate cash distribution of the coco-levy funds “in the form of social benefits, including but not limited to, pension benefits, medical and hospitalization benefits, maternity benefits and educational assistance including scholarships, among others.”
“Cash distribution will be in the form of social benefits. This is not a dole-out and a far cry from the graft-ridden CCT program included in the NAPC roadmap,” Marbella said.
Both groups are also supporting the enactment of House Bill 3443 or the proposed Coconut Levy Funds Administration and Management Act filed by Party-list Rep. Rafael Mariano of Anakpawis which seeks to establish a council comprised of coconut farmers themselves.
