CORPORATE WATCH
UCPB’s price cannot be too expensive, as this will discourage potential buyers.
farmers from 1971 to 1983. At present, all coco levy assets, excluding those still pending litigation, are estimated to be worth P93 billion, according to the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) (Rappler, 01.22.2017).
The coco levy funds were reportedly invested in the UCPB, SMC (San Miguel Corp.), Cocolife insurance, including 14 coconut oil milling and trading firms under the Coconut Industry Investment Fund (Ibid.) Stock certificates were distributed to 1.4 million individual names of coconut farmers, according to Coconut Industry Reform Movement (COIR) director Joey Faustino (Ibid.).
When Corazon “Cory” Aquino became president after Marcos was ousted by the EDSA People Power Revolution (EDSA I), the then newly created PCGG took over the sequestered assets from the Marcos dictatorship. The coconut levy funds were subsumed into the legal identity of the corporations into which these were allegedly diverted by the Marcos cronies. All presidents since Cory promised to return the coco levy funds to the farmers, but how?
On Dec. 14, 2001, the Supreme Court first declared that the coconut levy funds are public funds. The high court said the government has the right to vote as stockholder of the UCPB, SMC, and the CIIF group ( Ibid.). In October, 2015 the government finally and actually secured ownership of 72.2% of UCPB ( The
Philippine Star, 08.16.2017) from Danding Cojuangco (who claimed personal ownership), settling the to- and- fro protests from interest groups following the Supreme Court reiteration in 2012 that the state is the rightful owner of the UCPB stocks.
Then- President Benigno S. C. Aquino III immediately announced the privatization of UCPB and the creation of a Coconut Levy Trust Fund ( Ibid.). But the privatization plans were overtaken by the May 2016 elections and subsequent change of administration to Duterte. What to do? First, fine-tune the pricing of the UCPB shares to be privatized (and re-calibrate the amount of additional [ new, fresh] capital needed and to be offered). Income streams projected under the new status of UCPB as private ( not benefitted by government deposits) brought to present value, plus the goodwill gained from past financial performance can be the basis for pricing, to be established by an inter-agency technical group that would include the NEDA, DBM, SEC, and the BSP led by the Department of Finance, and sent up to the President for approval and thence to the Legislature for the final operating law.
Included in the privatization plan might be the direct pay-out of validated shares of stock and coupons held by vetted farmer-claimants documenting their claims of ownership on the coco levy fund. Those claimants who have no proof of direct ownership in the fund will be taken care of by the Trust Fund or a small government agency under the Department of Agriculture that will administer and directly disburse the funds for the sole benefit of the coconut industry (not just the group of original claimants to the coco levy fund).
Let us take this chance to close the coco levy fund permanently, and move on.