The focus of this article are the coconut farmers. They need not be poor; in fact, they should be the easiest to deliver from poverty and, in the crest of the momentum, tow the rest of the poor from poverty. This is especially so because the coconut is easy to grow.

I will describe practical approaches that should remove them from the rut they’re in, as it is conceded that in the agricultural sector they are the poorest. The approaches are not scholarly but shaped by years of mingling with coconut farmers from Cebu, Palawan, Quezon, Negros Oriental, Agusan del Sur, Agusan del Norte, the Surigao provinces, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga-Sibugay, Sulu, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, Masbate and Camarines Sur.

The approaches have also been refined by the sieve of imagination and memory.

I will ask the readers for a little patience because in bringing home a point, I will raise illustrations from diverse time frames to show some momentum and a dash of hope.

There is a simple truth I trust the readers will agree with me: Two are bigger than one. The Toledo Green Coconut Farmers Association (TGCFA) plants at least two coconut trees for the same amount the Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF) Coconut Oil Mills Group and the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) spend for planting one coconut tree with still something left for a livelihood project. If the TGCFA way is replicated nationwide by these two agencies dealing with coconut farmers’ welfare, the benefits to the coconut industry cannot be gainsaid. TGCFA covers the cities of Toledo and Naga (now it is a city again), Tuburan, Asturias, Balamban, Pinamungahan, Aloguinsan, Barili, Badian, Argao and Dalaguete.

An explanation for this could be gathered from Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala’s Agrikulturang Pinoy or Agri-Pinoy Guidelines, although admittedly, I got the guidelines only at the Coconut Summit in December 2010. The philosphy is the same. “Bridging the gap. Teaching the heart. Emphasis on making our constituency feel our sincerity so that they will trust us and respond to our call for partnership.”

Another simple fact we in Cebu have been instilling in the communities we are reaching out to, specifically the coconut farmers and the agricultural sector in general: “You do not have the right to be poor. Wala kang karapatan na maging mahirap. [Pilipino]. Wala kay katungod nga mapobre [Cebuano].”

The joke bandied around is that the Commission on Human Rights might frown on this because it is a denial of a right.

Here are approximate figures: 3.4 million hectares used by 3.5 million farmers in 68 of 79 provinces; 340 milllion bearing trees, and 49 million senile trees.

One-fourth, maybe even one-third of this land mass, is choked by unwanted vegetation. A few thousand bush cutters distributed to coconut farmers formed into groups of seven or eight would usher the equivalent of a fresh land-reform program without the proverbial sweat, tears and blood.

These clearings could support an infusion of livestock because grass for forage could grow.

If we import breeding stock of goats and sheep from New Zealand now, we will be improving dramatically the lot of our coconut farmers even as we help also New Zealand. With the losses they suffered from the earthquake devastation, they would welcome every additional dollar.

If the coconut farmers choose to intercrop with coffee and cacao in these clearings, the Philippines would not have to import cofffee and cacao in four years.

The 2009 PCA Highlights of Accomplishments appearing in the 24th National Coconut Week Souvenir Program reads, “and Plowable Intercropping Program (PIP) where 94,167 bags of glutinous white corn were distributed nationwide and intercropped in some 77,277 hectares benefiting a total of 76,136 farmers.”

The bushcutters could liberate at least 100,000 to 300,000 hectares of these trangled coconut farmlands.

There is much anxiety about the unregulated massive cutting of senile trees. I understand laws have been passed to arrest this.

The better idea is to encourage the massive cutting of senile trees. Their continuing production, undoubtedly minimal, would necessitate the use of more fertilizer. Labor-wise, harvesting them is expensive and time-consuming because they are generally supertall.

Incentives could be provided like working out a financing and banking scheme for senile trees to be used as collateral for loans for livelihood projects. The United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) could take the lead in such a study. Its loans to coconut farmers are negligible. Its name is a misnomer.

Even with the stringent legal provisions, it is said that the ratio of trees planted for every tree cut is 1:23. It must be borne in mind that PCA personnel being so few, securing certification for the cutting of trees comes, again, by way of sweat, tears and blood.

The massive cutting of senile trees through incentives would soften the economic adjustments that have to be made if a total log ban were in effect.

Not too long ago, I took a land trip from Surigao to Agusan del Sur, Agusan del Norte, Misamis Oriental, Bukidnon to Davao City. I saw a lot of uncultivated land, land sparsely planted to coconuts and a lot of senile trees. The same holds true along the General Santos, Cotabato, Malabang,  Marawi, Iligan City, Cagayan de Oro route. Also the Iligan City, Sultan Naga Dimaporo, Zamboanga del Sur route.

The trip to Agusan del Sur was made for two reasons.

One, I wanted to see what made the province attractive for a coconut-plantation project that would necessitate an investment of around P6 billion. This was approved by the PCA and the Department of Agriculture, but got stymied when a newly appointed PCA lady administrator exposed its weaknesses. She did not stay long in office.

Indeed, there is much space for coconuts and other crops in Agusan del Sur. This is true in many parts of the country. Our land is underutilized.

Two, a renewal of association with the Higaonons and other indigenous peoples of the two Agusan provinces. As a writer for then-Graphic Weekly Magazine, I featured a Higaonon chief who was introduced to me by the anthropologist Juan Francisco. I later visited the Higaonon leader in the provincial jail in Butuan City. He was accused of joining a band which ambushed a logger’s workers.

Word had gotten around that I was into community development and I got invited by some Higaonon leaders to assist them in organizational matters, planning and implementing agricultural projects. I think I won their trust because I was aked to return for a dumalongdong, a religious ceremony, in their sacred mountain. I attended similar ceremonies in Misamis Oriental and Bukidnon, where I was also requested for advice on the development of their ancestral land.

The recent Agusan trips were also a homecoming for me. When I was a child, my parents managed a farm in Cabadbaran in the undivided Agusan. We had Mamanwas planting coconuts, corn and camote for us. We, however, took care of our pigs, chicken and a pair of sheep. The ram pulled a small cart. The ewe delivered a lamb which was bitten by a snake. We had a steel rim of a wheel’s tire hung on a tripod. At 8 a.m., 12 noon and 4 p.m. daily, this was struck by a hammer, an iron bar, or a stone. Hornbills from the nearby forest complemented our time-telling. I would watch them flying from a distance or see them on tree tops, seeing one closely, its dried blood coating its cap of a beak only when a Mamanwa, anticipating feasting on it, passed by the house on his way home.

On the trip to the sacred mountain by way of a jeepney ride from Bayugan City to the Esperanza poblacion, then a 30-minute motorized banca ride, a 30- kilometer motorcycle ride on a muddy road, and a 10-kilometer hike, there was no more sound of a hornbill.

The Mamanwas planted coconuts for us in return for the privilege to plant corn for their use.

In his Outputs of the Philippine Coconut Industry Summit, December 9-10, 2010, Dr. Rolando T. Dy, executive director of the Center for Food and Agribusiness, University of Asia and the Pacific, wrote: “Prime Minister Cesar Virata said so many road maps have not been implemented. Well, you cannot implement a road map unless you have a Godfather-Grandfather. The Godfather of Malaysia’s Federal Land Development Authority [Felda] as mentioned by Cielito Habito [which led to the reduction of the number of poor people in Malaysia and development of over a million hectares of plantation] is the father of today’s prime minister of Malaysia and his motto was ‘no need to be poor.’”

The coconut farmers need a few Godfathers-Grandfathers.

President Benigno S. Aquino III and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Renato Corona can very well be the Godfather-Grandfather by simply doing their duty to lead and interpret the law judiciously.

The coconut farmers have their own funds from the coconut levy amounting to over a hundred billion pesos. With the crisis in the Middle East and North Africa and the impact of the quake-tsunami-nuclear disasters in top trading partner Japan, the Philippines could be in for  truly severe economic difficulties. There are wrinkles in many other fronts, like the malaria outbreak, which had around 500 Filipino workers flying back to the Philippines. It is hoped that what happened in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia won’t impact our workers so adversely.

Bahrain is perturbed and even Saudi Arabia, which has over a million Filipino workers. If they would be forced to flee, that would be a tsunami of suddenly jobless heroes. Given this specter, a strong surge of developmental activities in the coconut sector could fend off an economic panic and might even allow the country to cruise mightily forward.

The Philippine tragedy is that the coconut farmers can barely access their own funds. The Philippine tragedy is that these funds have been tended by wolves in sheep’s clothing.

The Philippine Star, March 7,2011, reported that the Presidential Commission on Good Government had the coconut farmers’ 753 million common shares in San Miguel Corp. converted to preferred shares at P75 per share from P66. “As of November 30, 2010, the value of said common share is pegged at P120.... As of last Friday, shares at SMC at the Philippine Stock Exchange closed at P171.50. It hit a high of P10 last December.”

Worst, because of the conversion, the coconut farmers have no more representation in the SMC board ofdirectors.

I will not go into multiplying how much the coconut farmers have lost.

Still, there might be a closure to this tragedy.

The Philippine Coconut Industry Summit, December 9 and 10, passed a resolution, thus: “Whereas, the coconut-levy fund, raised from the resources of the coconut industry itself, held in abeyance and frozen for the last 23 years of  litigation, is the most viable hope as source of developmental support, and with more reason since the coconut levy has been declared unquestionably as public fund, owned by the government in trust for the benefit of coconut farmers.

“Wherefore, the coconut farmers and stakeholders assembled in the 2010 Philippine Coconut Industry Summit, resolve, as it is hereby resolved, to appeal to President Benigno S. Aquino III to consider the urgency of fast-tracking an ex-peditious resolution of the coconut-levy controversy and thereby allocate and release the levy fund, including the earnings and dividends to finance the long-term coconut-development program.

“Resolved further, that copies of this Summit Resolution be furnished the President of the Philippines, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Senate President and the Speaker of the House.”

This resolution, like the first shot at the Concord Bridge during the American Revolution, would hopefully be heard around the world, reverberating first, again hopefully, throughout the Philippines.

Many years ago, a leader from Misamis Oriental, Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez, who got too inquisitive about the coconut levy, suffered a gunshot wound as he was leaving the gate of his Quezon City residence. He managed to ask a police officer who rushed to the scene, “What is happening to our country,
general?”

2011 is a much safer year. Moreover, the Supreme Court and the Sandiganbayan have issued decisions favorable to the coconut farmers. All that is needed is a clarity of mind and a firm resolve against poverty from our leaders.

With the prospect of a release of billions of pesos from the coconut-levy fund, the public must demand a proper and creative utilization of funds for the development of the coconut sector. A handy guideline for this is the acceptance of the simple fact that two are bigger than one. Also, a return to the parable of the talent.

In a discussion I had with then- Cabinet secretaries Silvestre Bello, Hermogenes Esperon, Cerge Remonde and Nasser Pangandaman in Secretary Bello’s office at the Presidential Management Staff building, I touched briefly on Malaysia’s approach to its insurgency problem and farm development when I took up with them an approach to finding peace in Muslim Mindanao. I had in mind the coconut not only as a Tree of Life
but also as a Tree of Peace. This could also have a “Plant  a Tree and Go to Mecca” theme.

Whatever it is, the prospects for economic development, poverty reduction and peace are high in the coconut sector. After nearly four decades, there is no longer any excuse not to give flesh to this promise and possibility. All it takes is the will to succeed and   render justice to those who have long stood in line for their time.

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In Photo: A worker collects coconuts from the top of a tree at a coconut plantation outside Legazpi City in Bicol. (Paul Hilton/Bloomberg News)

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