DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/22/2013
For 27 years the country's three million or so coconut farmers and advocates have fought to get the billions of pesos of the Coconut Levy Fund for the use of, for and by the coconut industry sector to develop highest value-added products and grow incomes in the sector. It has not succeeded.
The Philippine coconut industry sector may be losing the levy funds to the dirty hands of the Yellow President's corrupt cronies. On May 20 this year, in the midst of the distraction of the election ado and the Taiwan-RP imbroglio spilled over, news of BS Aquino and his budget Rasputin Butch Abad's memorandum to divert the remaining "P120-billion coco levy fund" to "farm-to-market roads" — code name for pork barrel feasting.
The Philippine coconut industry sector may be losing the levy funds to the dirty hands of the Yellow President's corrupt cronies. On May 20 this year, in the midst of the distraction of the election ado and the Taiwan-RP imbroglio spilled over, news of BS Aquino and his budget Rasputin Butch Abad's memorandum to divert the remaining "P120-billion coco levy fund" to "farm-to-market roads" — code name for pork barrel feasting.
For a year now the country's coconut industry sector, farmers and advocates, have been monitoring the BS Aquino's underlings' maneuverings. He let the hyenas lose with the Finance and the Akbayan (Rocamora-NGO) mafias competing to get their dirty hands on the remaining billions. The incumbent Department of Agriculture secretary was supposed to be making the pitch for the genuine coconut farmers and advocates to dedicate the remaining billions to a permanent fund for the continuing development and advancement of the coconut industry with grassroots multi-product, mini processing centers that can service 300 hectares clusters of coconut farmlands where farmers can bring their coconuts for processing to various high value products.
Eighty five percent to 95 percent of Philippine coconuts are processed only into copra, throwing or burning away four billion liters of coconut water, husks and shells, billions of liters of coconut milk and virgin coconut oil, and many other potential byproducts. Copra exported to other countries are pressed and processed there and we lose the massive downstream incomes. The coconut producing areas do not need more farm-to-market roads, they need processing facilities. The farm-to-market roads fixation assumes that the best approach to bring goods to big, industrial centers; this is a great big mistake. For example, today coconuts from Mindanao are still transported to Laguna, in Luzon, where most of the giant copra and coconut processing plants are concentrating incomes in a few companies while the province remain impoverished.
The KMU and Coco Levy Fund Ibalik sa Amin said, "We don't want so-called road projects that only benefit corrupt local officials…. The dire poverty (in coconut areas) exists mainly due to high land rent, the imposition of resicada, low prices of copra and other semi-feudal forms of exploitation and not due to lack of access roads,…" Other coconut farmer and advocacy groups are gearing to take action too, such as the Philippine Coconut Society (PCS) , COIR, and even members of the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) leadership who will be joining the street actions. Taking the struggle one level higher, the PCS presents crystal clear grassroots based development plan for the coconut industry sector, called Freshco, versus copra, processing with the multi-product processing centers for every 300-hectare coconut lands cluster — a national coconut industry development road map.
For the coconut farmers, the just concluded general election is a totally irrelevancy, none of the candidates and winners talk about these substantive issues. The farmers' and the country's problem is how we can keep BS Aquino's, Abad's and the politico's hands off the coconut levy. When the new and young pols are inaugurated in June, the vast majority of them will start to take action protecting their family's legislative or local government fiefdom and the share of the pork barrel. Some are making a big show of how they will still be learning the ropes and how they will respectfully, "magalang," learn from the elders in the institutions. I don't know how many Filipinos are still taken in by such shallow posturings but I do know that many even among the masa are already tired of the comedia.
Despite my distaste for the concluded political exercise, I do find some gems in it. One example is Johnny Chang of Quezon City who garnered 10 percent of QC's votes representing the thinking portion of that population. Chang educated the public on the taxation and pork barrel issues of Quezon City. Chang got just over 3,000 votes in 2010; now it's 51,000. Next time around he may be mayor of Quezon City already. Of course, Estrada in Manila was an absolute necessity; Lim was already a cancer that needed to be excised. Manila will see its old glory back. To the Kapatiran, the party-lists Magdalo and Append, congratulations. To Sanlakas, Kaakbay, maybe a miracle can still put one of yours in. In the meantime, we continue preparing for the revolution.
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