CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – The militant peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and the claimants movement Coco Levy Funds Ibalik sa Amin (Claim) lashed yesterday at the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) for claiming ownership of P15.6 billion of the P71-billion coco levy funds.
“Members of the bank’s board are repeating the same plunderous scheme that led to their bank’s bankruptcy,” said KMP Chair Rafael Mariano. Mariano lamented that UCPB has suffered “gigantic losses” due to “criminal negligence and schematic plunder of billions of coco levy funds.”
“Now the UCPB still has the gall to claim ownership of the P15.6 billion of the coco levy funds,” he said. Mariano recalled that a Senate inquiry in 2011 found out that the UCPB “literally stole” billions of coconut levy funds by allowing its preferred clients to take out unsecured loans.
“This prompted the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation to loan the troubled bank P12 billion. The national government also lent UCPB P30 billion at low interest to bail the bank out and let it earn from lending at a higher interest rate,” he noted.
“Now it appears that the UCPB board is repeating the same plunderous scheme by hiring the law firm of one of its
directors,” Mariano said, referring to Nilo Divina, dean of the University of Santo Tomas faculty of law and presently a member of the UCPB board of directors.
“Worse, while the bank is facing bankruptcy, its board of directors feasts over the coconut farmers’ money,” Mariano said, citing reports that from 2005 to 2009, one board member travelled abroad 27 times. Mariano said “the UCPB’s move claiming ownership of P15.6 billion worth of coco levy fund is totally unacceptable.”
“It is an added insult to millions of small coconut farmers. UCPB has no right to claim even a single cent from the coco levy funds,” he stressed. The KMP and Claim reiterated calls for the enactment of House Bill 1327 or the Genuine Small Coconut Farmers’ Fund authored by Anakpawis party-list Rep. Fernando Hicap.
The Anakpawis bill provides that “all assets acquired, established or set up using the coconut levy collections shall form part of a single fund which is hereby created to be known as the Genuine Small Coconut Farmers’ Fund (GSCFF).”
The proposed bill also provides that coco levy funds shall be used exclusively for the benefit of genuine small coconut farmers. KMP and Claim described the bill as the “legislative counterpart” of the small coconut farmers’ proposal for the cash distribution of the recovered funds.”
