The saga continues

Gonzalo Co’s, fight to recover ownership of the trademarks “Green Cross” and “Zonrox” has found new hope.

This was after Intellectual Property Office (IPO) director Josephine Santiago admitted Co’s supplemental appeal memorandum, thereby giving petitioner the opportunity to be heard.

Co a.k.a Co It, now deceased, hadfiled petitions with the IPO to cancel the certificate of re-registration of the two brands in the name of Green Cross Inc. (GCI), successor of Gonzalo Laboratories Inc., claiming the trademarks, which were his original creations, remained his property.

The IPO has canceled said petitions, stating among others that the petitioner had assigned said brands to GCI.

In his petitions, Co It claimed he had established his sole proprietorship under the business name Gonzalo Laboratories. He was granted a certificate of registration by the IPO for the mark “Green Cross.”

He alleged that his brother persuaded him to convert his single proprietorship into a corporation. Thus GLI was registered and Co It argued he was the only one who produced the paid up capital and that his siblings and parents were named incorporators and shares placed in their names by way of implied trust to comply with the five-member board requirement.

Co It further claimed that he was deceived by his siblings into executing a deed assigning the trademark “Green Cross” to the company. He added that the trademark “Zonrox,”which Co It said was his intellectual creation, was surreptitiously transferred by his siblings to the firm through an affidavit allegedly signed by him, which they treated as a Deed of Assignment.

In the supplemental appeal memorandum, Co It argued that the “Green Cross” and “Zonrox” marks were originally his, but were invalidly transferred to GCI.

IPO’s Santiago, in admitting the memorandum, said every party-litigant must be afforded the amplest opportunity for the proper and just determination of his cause, free from the constraints of technicalities.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court last Oct. 5 granted Co It’s motion to reinstate his petition for certiorari, assailing the decision of the Court of Appeals which in turn affirmed the Pasay RTC’s dismissal of his complaint for reconveyance with damages filed against his siblings. It claimed his siblings appropriated for themselves his deceased parents’ shares in GCI, to his exclusion.

With Co It gone, it is now up to his children to recover what their dad claims was “stolen” from him.

Need to review law

Republic Act No. 9367 or the Biofuels Act of 2006 mandated that all liquid fuels for motors and engines sold in the Philippines shall contain locally sourced biofuels.

Right now, the requirement is a 10 percent ethanol blend for gasoline (except for certain products that are exempt) and two percent biodiesel blend (mostly coco methyl ester mixed into diesel. All gasoline above 97 octane (considered premium plus) are exempt from the 10 percent ethanol blend but that is only one-two percent of the market.

The 10 percent ethanol blend requirement will be increased to 20 percent by 2020, and the two percent biodiesel blend to 10 percent by 2020 and to 20 percent by 2030.

Unfortunately, local bioethanol producers could hardly meet the domestic demand. Thus, oil companies are forced to import bioethanol, albeit at much cheaper prices, to meet the rest of their requirement.

A report published by the USDA Foreign Agriculture Service has said that while it expects local ethanol production to increase this year as some potable alcohol producers shift to fuel ethanol production, meeting the 10 percent blend in gasoline would still be a problem.

Total installed capacity of the 11 ethanol plants operating in the country this year is at 322 MLi.

Local demand reached 455 MLi in 2014 while ethanol imports were at 311 MLi in 2015, 281 MLi in 2016 and an estimated 278 MLi in 2017.

Local ethanol demand reached 455 MLi in 2014 and is expected to grow by an average of five percent annually.

For biodiesel (which uses coconut methyl ester as the main feedstock in the Philippines), the report expects production to be sufficient.

The USDA report said that increasing prices of locally produced biofuels, coupled with declining global oil prices, is likely forcing the Philippine government to rethink its current energy policy, adding that some consumers have claimed that the biofuels program has effectively raised pump prices.

Local ethanol prices continue to increase, it noted. From P56.33 per liter in June 2015, this has risen to P59.83 in the same period last year. Imported ethanol is much cheaper. According to the Independent Philippine Petroleum Companies, local ethanol is priced at P62 per liter while imported ethanol is at P24 per liter, or around 300 percent cheaper.

According to one study, a P1 increase in the price of ethanol feedstock prices (i.e. sugarcane) increases the price of gasoline by 37 centavos per liter.

Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi told this writer it is about time that the Biofuels Act be amended and so the energy department is submitting to Congress a proposed amendment to the law that will limit the amount of ethanol that will be blended by oil companies to what is locally available. This means that the 10 percent blend will be a maximum and if local ethanol supply is not enough, then oil companies don’t have to import the rest.

Cusi said such a proposal would also save on foreign exchange considering that oil companies no longer have to import ethanol to meet the legal requirement.

Without the 10 percent ethanol blend requirement, gasoline pump prices would be cheaper by P1.50 to P2 per liter, one oil company said.

Such a proposal may be timely, considering that government plans to impose additional excise tax on gasoline and diesel. It is possible that any savings that oil companies will generate from not having to import ethanol can be passed on to consumers, partially offsetting the negative effect on fuel prices of the planned increase in excise taxes on gasoline and diesel.

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