By David Cagahastian @davecaga
A group pressed the government on Tuesday to honor the shares of stock issued to coconut farmers decades ago, representing their share in the government-controlled United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB), in keeping with President Duterte’s vow to honor past government commitments.
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) Chairman Joseph Canlas said the coconut farmers, which their group represents, would “gladly accept” if the Duterte administration would honor the shares of stocks held by farmers in UCPB. The shares were rendered worthless by the Supreme Court (SC) decision in 2012, which said these shares are bought using public funds and, thus, belong to the government.
KMP does not have the exact number of its members who were among the coconut farmers issued shares of stocks in UCPB, but claims to represent some 2 million coconut farmers who all have a stake as to how the Duterte administration would distribute coco-levy funds.
“If President Duterte would offer to honor those shares of stock in UCPB, then the farmers would gladly accept it as part of the process of returning the coco-levy funds to the farmers,” Canlas told the BusinessMirror.
According to the SC decision in January 2012, there are some 1.4 million coconut farmers who have been issued shares of stock in UCPB as their private property. Those farmers are still stockholders on record in the books of UCPB, but they are now regarded merely as “beneficial owners” of the shares of stock, with the government holding those in trust for the benefit of the coconut industry as a whole.
Farmers who are still stockholders on record in the books of UCPB also still receive notices to attend certain events to effect transactions where the approval of stockholders is required under the law. However, they are not allowed to vote during those events since the government, which holds the stocks in trust votes in their stead.
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol, who earlier announced Mr. Duterte’s directive to release the coco-levy funds, said a group within the Duterte Cabinet is handling the matter.
“I can’t make a comment on the [coco-levy] issue because there is a group handling that,” he said.
Former President Benigno S. Aquino III had tasked the Governance Commission on Government-owned and -Controlled Corporations (GCG) to conduct an inventory of the assets bought using coco-levy funds, but this inventory-taking was for the purpose of privatizing these assets.
Piñol declined to comment on whether it is still the GCG, which will decide on how to distribute the coco-levy assets, nor on the composition of the group handling the issue within the Duterte Cabinet.