Roxas, Duterte vow swift release of coco levy fund

Presidential candidates Mar Roxas and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte may have been lambasting each other during the political campaign, but they still have one thing in common.

Both have vowed to work for the immediate release of the controversial coco levy fund should they get elected president in the May 9, 2016 elections.

Roxas said the continuous delay of its use has already deprived coconut farmers the long-overdue assistance to improve their lives.

Duterte and his running mate Senator Alan Peter Cayetano said the distribution of the multi-billion-peso coco levy funds to coconut farmers will be done within the first 100 days under a government headed by them.

Roxas explained that coconut farmers have long waited to partake on the more than 70-billion coco levy fund which remains untouched after the Senate failed to pass the bill that was supposed to have outlined its use in accordance to the law.

It was learned that the coco levy fund was returned to the national government treasury in full but since the law requires an outline on how it would be spent, its release remain elusive until this time.

President Aquino tried to expedite its release by creating an executive order but this was questioned before the Supreme Court. This leaves a congressional action as the last hope for its release.

“If elected president, I will expedite in responding to the intent of the Coco Levy which is provide assistance to coconut farmers and their family,” said Roxas.

Aside from low interest loans to have the farmers improve and expand their farming, Roxas said he will also push for allocation of funds for the scholarship programs of the children of coconut farmers.

But more than the assistance that the coco levy fund would provide to the coconut farmers family, Roxas said part of the fund will be used to assist farmers for modern farming with high-yielding results.

For instance, he said a coconut farmer currently earns an average of 40,000 a year. But with modern technique and other assistance, he said the average earnings could balloon to an average of 120,000.

“The fund will be of big use for the coconut farmers to re-plot their old coconuts and to produce value-added products,” said Roxas.

“This is not an end in itself but a means to improve the lives of the coconut farmers,” he added.

Duterte and Cayetano had earlier boasted that “it will take them one month to distribute the coco levy fund, pointing out that this move merely requires political will.

“The Supreme Court already decided to return the fund to the farmers. Thus, if elected, in just the first month of our term, Alan and I will immediately give the fund back to the coconut farmers. Failure to do so is tantamount to estafa,” Duterte stated shortly after his closest rival in the presidential race, survey leader Senator Grace Poe, drew flak for her alleged defense of Nationalist People’s Coalition founder and business leader Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. who is widely blamed for the coco levy controversy.

Duterte spokesman Peter Lavina said Duterte and Cayetano met farmers in Quezon with the latter airing serious misgivings over the government’s failure to give them their share of the 71-billion coco levy fund.

“We will not allow this cycle of neglect to continue. The disorder this has caused in the lives of our farmers needs to end,” Lavina quoted Cayetano as telling the farmers.