Velasco: Third reading approval of coco levy fund bill expected before break
MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives is expected to pass on its third and final reading the bill creating the coconut levy trust fund before it goes on a holiday break next week, House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco said.
“The establishment of the trust fund will ensure that the recovered coco levy funds will be used for the development of the coconut industry and to uplift the lives of coco farmers who are among the poorest in the country,” Velasco said in a statement released Sunday.
The measure was among the priority legislation urged by President Rodrigo Duterte in his last State of the Nation Address in July. "We must utilize the [coco levy funds] for the welfare of our coconut farmers and the development of our coconut industry. The problem is, we can no longer trace who are the farmers of yesterday. Marcos is a distant star," the chief executive said then.
To recall, Duterte vetoed the initial bills submitted to the Palace—both expected to benefit around 3.5 million coconut farmers from 68 coconut-producing provinces who own not more than 5 hectares of farmland—citing their lack of “vital safeguards to avoid the repetition of painful mistakes in the past" rendering them prone to corruption such as the pork barrel funds
On Wednesday, the lower chamber approved House Bill No. 8136, or the proposed Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund Act, on its second reading after it was endorsed to the plenary by the House panel on Agriculture and Food.
HB 8136 seeks to let poor coconut farmers benefit from taxes collected from them decades ago, now worth around P76 billion in assets. Under the proposed legislation, the trust fund will be maintained for 99 years under the Coconut Farmers and Industry Development Plan to be formulated by the Philippine Coconut Authority.
The bill aims to "increase the income of coconut farmers, alleviate poverty and promote social equity, and rehabilitate and modernize the industry towards farm productivity," the statement reads.
With the finance department designated as the manager of the trust fund, an allocation of P5 billion will be made available to the PCA, including disbursements for the formulation of the CFIDP.
— Franco Luna with reports from Xave Gregorio
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