The cross-eyed and the liar are brothers of the thief and the mother of greed,” an old Filipino proverb says This axiom festers in the now 41-year-old coconut levy scandal.
Government this week bucked a bid by “czar” Eduardo ‘Danding’ Cojuangco Jr. to dismiss a civil case on a bid to “defraud government of P426 million invested to produce hybrid coconut seedlings in Palawan.” That’s how the Presidential Commission on Good Government describes it.
Other defendants are: Agricultural Investors Inc. Enrique and Marcos Cojuangco, Rafael Abello, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile (now twisting in the pork barrel controversy).
Delays violated his right to speedy disposition of the case, Cojuangco said. “The delay was not intentional…and was precipitated by defendant’s own inaction and legal maneuvering,” the Solicitor-General replied, then asked the anti-graft court : Shred the motion to dismiss please.
Thousands of small farmers, meanwhile, went to their graves clutching worthless coco levy stock certificates issued by the Marcos dictatorship. Presidential Decree 276 directed that “coco levies”, clamped in 68 provinces, would be owned by cronies “in their private capacities”.
Taxes became individual loot. If PD 276 is not scrubbed as unconstitutional, “Marcos found a legal and valid way to steal,” wrote then columnist Antonio Carpio. As Supreme Court justice today, Carpio finds himself vindicated.
Cojuangco served as martial law coconut czar, until People Power drove him into exile with the dictator. In between, levies bankrolled a hydra of coco mills, a bank, even a producers’ federation that never mustered names of supposed one million members.
Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, in August 1998, presented to President Joseph Estrada a Catholic Bishops-Businessmen’s Conference memo. “Abuse of state power” wrung those monies from impoverished coconut farmers,” it said. “They should be returned.”
Erap never did. Before People Power II, Erap signed Executive Orders 313 and 315. These delivered the levy— estimated at over P100 billion then —to cronies. Today, Manila Mayor Estrada pledges honest government even as he vouches for Senator Jinggoy Estrada, tarred in the pork scam.
Led by Chief Justice Hilario Davide, the Supreme Court ruled the levy were public funds. A furious Cojuangco unleashed, in November 2003, Nationalist People’s Coalition congressmen to impeach Davide. They rammed through a House probe into Judiciary Development Fund expenditures.
Reps. Gilberto Teodoro of Tarlac and Felix Fuentebella of Camarines Sur filed impeachment articles. Their backers were Darlene Antonino-Custodio, now Senator Francis Escudero, Rep. Ace Durano, Constantino Jaraula. Meet the “Brat Pack”.
“In gangland’s culture, Davide is a negative example of the public official,” Inquirer’s Randy David wrote. “He does not grovel. He is uncompromising and, as the nation saw in Erap’s impeachment, rules with impartiality. Now, he’s being taught a lesson by young heirs of those who’ve imagined themselves to be the real lords.”
“Is this a coalition of cretins?” snapped Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. “The conundrum of the House is: How to climb, out of the shit hole in which a third of its members descended with such stealth.” The House spurned Cojuangco’s “hitmen”.
Shares owned by 14 companies bought with the levy are “owned by the government,” Justice Teresita Leonardo de Castro wrote for Sandiganbayan in May 2004. “[They are] held in trust for all coconut farmers.”
“Coconut levy funds are prima facie public funds,” the Supreme Court stated in “Republic v. Cocofed.” Penned by then Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, the decision allowed sequestered shares to be voted by PCGG, “pending final determination of who were their legal owners.” Thus, Cojuangco surrendered control of a fleeced UCPB to government.
On the levy, the Corona Supreme Court flip-flopped four times. It issued in 2011, an “entry of judgment”: Cojuangco’s P56.3 billion SMC shares are “final”, including SMC stock certificates in blank, found in a Malacañang vault, after the Marcoses scrammed.
“The joke of the century,” snapped then Justice Conchita Carpio Morales. Cojuangco “used for his personal benefit the very same funds entrusted to him,” Morales’ dissenting opinion states. “[These] were released to him through illegal and improper machination of loan transactions. [His] contravention of corporation laws indicates a clear violation of fiduciary duty.”
Then Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno wrote: Cojuangco’s stake in SMC was “built on the sweat of coconut farmers,” By a scheme of “corporate layering and multi-level loan transactions,” he diverted public funds.
“Prescription, laches or estoppel will not bar future action to recover unlawfully acquired property by public officials or dummies.” “When the time comes…,” Sereno said, “the opportunity to revisit the ruling of this Court will be timely.” Count out Renato Corona who was impeached by the Senate.
Typhoon Yolanda, meanwhile savaged 33.8 million coconut trees. Some 16.1 million were totally damaged. The bill comes up to P16.6 billion. Coconut oil exports slumped by 35 percent at the start of 2014. The Philippines accounts for 40 percent of world exports.
Philippine Coconut Authority, meanwhile, seeks to fast track replanting, using high yielding varieties: Tacunan, Dwarf and Baybay Tall. Some 400,000 seedlings will be produced by three universities: Visayas State, Southern Leyte and Eastern Philippine. PCA has five million seedlings ready for distribution and planting early this year in the Visayas.
Fine. But coconuts take a decade to grow. Does thievery into the coconut levy continue meanwhile by “brothers of the thief and the mother of greed?”
“Pending final determination of who were their legal owners.” Thus, Cojuangco surrendered control of a fleeced UCPB to government.
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