Will the Coco Levy Fund end up like the Malampaya?

By Jose V. Romero

The highest court decided sometime ago that the coco levy funds are public funds, meaning that these are fiduciary funds kept in trust by the government for the development of the coconut industry as prescribed by the Marcos decrees authorizing the collection of such funds by the Philippine Coconut Authority in the seventies. It took the Supreme Court three decades to determine this issue, but never mind the money is there now to be deployed to develop an industry which is the principal source of income in most of the provinces and on which millions of coconut farmers depend on directly or indirectly for livelihood. The amount involved is substantial. The proceeds from the San Miguel stock alone in the name of the Coconut Industry Investment Fund—a coco levy funded enterprise is worth no less than P70 billion. If one were to take into account the other coco levy financed enterprises—the bank, insurance company, a coco chemical plant and oil mills the figure will quickly balloon to double the amount.

Read on…

lenny de jesus calls out jojo robles

Hi Angie,

Thanks for sending me a copy of the Oct 23 column of Jojo Robles in Manila Standard Today entitled “Napoles’ mentor?”

It is quite unfortunate that Jojo Robles did not verify his information before writing that column. For the record, I was not the Head of the Presidential Management Staff during the incumbency of President Cory Aquino. Ergo, all his insinuations about my part in thinking up a “Napoles scheme” are at best imaginary. If he were a responsible columnist, he would correct that misinformation ASAP.

Lenny de Jesus

disclosure:  lenny and i have been friends since we were kids and were classmates in UP Psych.

the president, people power, primetime

on facebook and on twitter it’s impossible not to see that indeed the president still has his staunch supporters who are behind him, benefit of the doubt (if any), all the way.  good for him.  makes it harder, even impossible, for coup plotters to make any headway in destablization/ouster efforts — forget it, guys, you failed in gloria’s time just because wala namang ipapalit na katanggaptanggap sa taongbayan, e di lalo pa ngayon, when vp binay, like noli de castro then, seems happy enough watching from the sidelines.  council of state? transition government?  asa pa.

but imagine if the veep were not a traditional politician, rather, bold and audacious enough to take the leap over to the side of the #scrappork movement, complete with a draft petition addressed to the president, with concrete steps toward a rational and transparent budget system (minimal pork discretionary funds, calamities and disasters only), for the approval and signatures of the millionpeoplemarch-ers.  the veep has missed the bus on that one, and so has his buddy senator chiz, and whoever else is seriously planning to run in 2016.

because the pork issue isn’t going away, and those who think pray swear it will are grossly grievously mistaken.  that a million people aren’t gathering in the streets doesn’t mean people power is passe or dead or at a loss; it only means that the people are a thinking people and they are levelling up, knowing full well that that it’s going to take more than an EDSA ala uno and dos, i.e., cosmetic changes, to get rid of the corrupt pork system, and they WILL find a way.  the only thing that will stop them is if the president beats them to the draw, sorry na lang ang kanyang mga kakonchaba.  now THAT would be pang-primetime.

tracking cj puno, initiative, pork

suddenly former chief justice reynato puno is all over the place, even making headlines.  ‘Bribery’ voids Corona impeachment — Puno screamed the manila times yesterday.  and i can’t help wondering if he is why the president felt compelled to go on nationwide primetime tv last night.  unfortunately the prez didn’t say anything new.  on social media people talk about having made abang, expecting something huge, something that would halt the fall, change the game, level it up.  alas.  back to the streets it is.

so, does the palace have reason to fear puno’s call for people’s initiative and referendum vs. PDAF, DAP, and all discretionary funds?  the logistics are difficult and complicated but, still, doable, and puno even has a timetable: he will be done drafting the petition sometime this november, and sees the referendum happening in january 2014.  (hmm, alam na kaya ng comelec ito?)  i suppose puno knows what he’s doing, he knows what went wrong with pirma’s chacha attempt via initiative in 1997, and there is every possibility that he might do fvr better.

and there’s the catch.  is puno thinking anti-pork lang or is there a chacha scenario farther on?  oct 8 it was when puno first sounded the call for a people’s initiative to abolish all pork. just eleven days later, oct 19, carmen pedrosa announced in her philstar column that puno had agreed to become the symbol and advocate of “crowdsourcing a new Constitution for a new Philippines.”

alarm bells ringing and all that.  i’ve made no bones about it on this blog, i’m against charter change that seeks (1) to shift us from presidential to parliamentary/federal system and (2) to delete economic provisions that limit foreign ownership of land atbp.  this is not to say that i would not welcome a serious public debate on these two issues via a website that might inspire and inform debates on print, radio, and television.  but i’m not sure that this is the right time for it.  not until the pork issue is settled, how ever long it takes.

besides, puno’s reputation is not all that sterling.  he has some owning-up to do if he hopes to win hearts and minds.  read ‘Unmitigated hypocrisy’ by lawyer democrito c. barcenas and then go back in time to President Puno? and Who’s Hot, and Who’s Not by antonio c. abaya, 2009.  the comment threads are also quite enlightening.