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PRESS RELEASE May 22, 2015 Reference:CHARLIE AVILA Cel No.: 0921-5742469; Land line – 02 7033183
Last Wednesday, May 20th, the Confederation filed with the Supreme Court a Petition for Prohibition against two Aquino Executive Orders on “the inventory and privatization” (E.O. 179) and “the reconveyance and utilization” (E.O. 180) of coco levy assets.
According to Ka Charlie Avila, Executive Director and Spokesperson of the group, “These twin executive orders can only lead to a much worse coco-economy of exclusion and would cause new plunder of the coco levy funds.”
“The Aquino government has no regard for the moral nature of the ownership of the coco levy assets,” said Avila.
The Supreme Court decision of January 24, 2012 succinctly affirmed the moral view that these funds/assets are “owned by the government to be used only for the benefit of all coconut farmers and for the development of the coconut industry; that therefore the beneficial and true owners of the coco levy funds are clearly “all coconut farmers,” even as their “trust owner is the government,” and their purpose is not general in nature as to include mere money making from privatization as the E.O’s would rush to do but,rather, quite particular, namely, “the development of the coconut industry.”
Avila said that it is fine to have an inventory of all coco-levy funded assets and investments, which can take quite a while, but it is wrong for the EOs to make a mockery of what the Court has just declared public trust funds by rushing to privatize them. “Since when did government have the right to include trust assets in its privatization program? The privatization hang-up of government via its EO 179 is a complete abandonment of its duties as trustee of the coco levy assets and is indubitably contrary to the Supreme Court ruling and the moral philosophy of trust ownership,” said Avila.
According to Avila, the least that the trustee government can do to be ethical and legal would be to consult its Trustors, the true beneficial owners who are all the coconut farmers. Government cannot legally privatize trust assets without the consent of the Trustors. “The Aquino government has this bad habit of making short shrift of constitutional provisions and legal niceties. The coconut farmers of this country must not allow him to do so in the case of the coco levy trust funds,” said Avila.
“More seriously,” said Avila, “the President cannot just arrogate unto himself, without legislative authority, the power to allocate, use and administer the billions of pesos of coconut funds and assets. The two chambers of congress are doing this right now as is their right and duty but the President would pre-empt them with these assailed E.O.s for how many billions of reasons and for what urgent purposes only his ruling party knows – although the farmers have their 2016 suspicions.”
“Nor can he arrogate unto himself the exclusive authority of the Judiciary to execute its final and executory decisions as this would violate the principle of separation of powers, essential to a democracy. But the President’s men would not be bashful at all in showing undue haste to transfer the coco levy funds to their control. This is DAP all over again. When will he stop mocking the other co-equal branches of government by arrogating to himself their corresponding exclusive authority?”
Avila also cited the case filed by PKSMNN against two executive orders (Nos. 312 and 313) signed by then President Estrada on the utilization of the coco levy funds. The two EOs were nullified by the Supreme Court because they violated the Philippine Constitution, by deviating from the special purpose of the coco levy funds. In the PKSMNN case, the Supreme Court said that an EO cannot be above a Presidential Decree or a Republic Act
Avila stated that the Aquino EOs are presently characterized by mere tokenism in farmer participation (via some consultations with them urged on the PCA). The farmers are mere objects, not subjects, in the whole process They are the classic excuse for the classic plunder of this kind of wealth.
Much heavier is the government’s accent on finance: the conveyance to or depositing in favor of the Government the riches of the coco levy funds- now valued at PHP 73.4B in hard cash, which are currently held in trust with the Bureau of Treasury and various other companies, and billions more in non-cash assets, which are now also held in different companies such as the UCPB, CIIF Oil Mills Group, Coco Life, UCPB-Gen, and COCOCHEM. In this regard government agents are quite in a rush. They want it all turned over now, in utter disregard of the exclusive authority of the Judiciary on the matter.
What necessarily started out as a reiteration of the Court ruling that all assets shall be used solely and exclusively for the benefit of the coconut farmers and the development of the coconut industry is terribly weakened along the way and rendered anemic because no serious attention was given to the farmers’ own proposals – only a predilection for the so-called government ownership of new-found funds.
According to Avila, there are only two ways to solve the issue of the coco levy funds – the right way or the wrong way. The wrong way is for government to allow or encourage sectors and agencies not even connected with the coconut industry to start posturing to get their hands on the coconut levy funds, which the E.O’s do. The right way is to constitute the coconut levy funds and assets more explicitly into a Coconut Industry Trust Fund (CITF), by law, and provide the administrative structure, also by law, that will manage the trust funds and ensure that its use will benefit the coconut industry and the coconut farmers, which the two chambers of Congress are trying to do. That structure is proposed the farmers to be a new GOCC or Foundation to be called the Philippine Coconut Farmers’ Foundation (PCFF).”
“For almost two decades now, we the majority stakeholders – the coconut farmers – have made our thoughts and feelings clear: only the recognition of the dual ownership of the funds – government as trust owner and all the coconut farmers as true beneficial owners – can guarantee that the funds will be utilized according to its purposes – the benefit of all the coconut farmers and the development of the coconut industry.” The EOs dismally fail in this regard and therefore they must be stopped. The EOs are instruments to plunder the coco levy funds that are products of the sweat, tears, and blood of millions of coconut farmers,” said Ka Charlie Avila. FINIS