A COALITION of coconut farmers on Monday expressed their misgivings on the current version of the Coconut Farmers and Industry Development Act which they described as anti-poor for allegedly containing provisions favoring large landowners.
In a news conference, Kilus Magniniyog (KM) representative Jhun Pascua said small coconut farmers are unlikely to benefit from the financing provisions under the final draft of the law after lawmakers scrapped its provision limiting its beneficiary to those coconut farmers with lands of 5 hectares and below.
Without the restriction, he said, large coconut farmers will now be able to compete with their smaller counterparts for the funding under the new law.
“The removal of this important safeguard effectively opens the floodgates for large landowners to access programs and projects supposed to be most available for the poorest and marginalized,” KM said.
Limited registration
Furthermore, the coalition of nine national coconut farmer federation also raised concern on the law’s restriction that only those registered with the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) will be given access to the fund.
“Probably only 20 percent of the total coconut farmers are accredited by PCA,” Pascua said.
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) secretary general Danny Carranza said few small coconut farmers are registered with the PCA since they are based in far-flung areas and unable to understand the voluminous registration in English language form.
“There are many tenants and coconut farmers, who do not know English, why would you subject them to that burden?” Carranza told Business Mirror in an ambush interview.
“If their intention is to get accurate data, that it is fine, if they will make it a condition [for the funding], then that is wrong,” he added.
Fund management
Under the Coconut Farmers and Industry Development Act, a trust fund will be put up using the P105-billion coconut levy fund set up during the administration of former President Ferdinand Marcos to provide financing to members of the coconut industry.
Pascua also criticized the composition of the “reconstituted” PCA, which will manage the said trust fund.
While the law guarantees that at least six farmers representatives will be included in the PCA, he said, the manner of how they will be picked will be “politicized,” especially since their appointments will be approved by the President.
Alma Penaverde, another KM member, said there is also a risk PCA will just pick the representatives from the coconut farmers which it organized.
Pascua said this will prevent authentic representation of coconut farmers in the PCA.
Lastly, KM also opposed the manner by which the P105 billion coco-levy fund is scheduled to be spent in the next 25 years.
“The limitation will create unnecessary pressure on government to release the funds in large chunks, only to find out later that it could have been utilized for greater impact,” KM said.
Stakeholder support
With the looming approval of the enabling law of the coconut-levy fund by the bicameral panel of the House of Representatives and the Senate, KM is now pinning its hopes on President Duterte.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and Task Force Magniniyog (TFM) expressed their support for the initiative of KM.
CBCP’s National Secretariat for Social Action (Nassa) Executive Secretary Fr. Edwin A. Gariguez said there is a need to amend the current draft of the law so it will benefit poor coconut farmers.
“These appear to be some provisions of the law which need to be corrected…We would like to remind the President to consider what will be good for the majority, especially the poor,” Gariguez said.
Likewise, TFM legal counsel Christian Monsod cited the need for authorities to make the coco- levy fund available to more coconut farmers, adding this will finally correct the 40 years of injustice inflicted on coconut farmers.