Dominguez orders speedy disposal of P 111-B coco levy assets

FILE PHOTO: Finance Secretary Sonny Dominguez III. INQUIRER/JOAN BONDOC

President Duterte’s chief economic manager has ordered the speedy disposition of Marcos-era coco levy assets, to be jumpstarted by the recent Commission on Audit’s (COA) findings on their value.

In a statement on Saturday, the Department of Finance (DOF) said the COA recently reported to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III that the coco levy assets were worth P111.3 billion.

This value presented by the COA to Dominguez was smaller than the Presidential Commission on Good Government’s (PCGG) estimate of P113.9 billion as of end-2020. The COA said the PCGG’s estimate was overstated by P2.6 billion.

According to the DOF, “Dominguez commended COA for what he described as a heroic effort of examining the extensive amount of data on the coco levy assets.”

Legal options

“Please go over this report and parse it, and to go through this with a fine-tooth comb, and report to the committee as soon as possible of what is the real status of the assets, what can be disposed, what cannot be disposed, what’s tied up in court, and other related matters,” Dominguez told Finance Undersecretary Antonette Tionko, who’s the manager of the coconut farmers and industry trust fund, as well as National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon, who heads the trust fund management committee, during the committee’s meeting on May 4.

During the same meeting, the committee “also resumed discussions on the legal options available to speed up the disposal of several coco levy assets so that their proceeds can be used for the benefit of the country’s coconut farmers,” the DOF said.

The trust fund management committee chaired by Dominguez oversees the utilization of the coconut farmers and industry trust fund, which was formed under Republic Act No. 11524 enacted into law by Mr. Duterte last year.

RA 11524 had been hoped to pave the way for efficient use of the Marcos-era coco levy fund, as well as reform the coconut sector through the coconut farmers and industry development plan being implemented by the Philippine Coconut Authority.

Tionko said COA’s audit report was “a good starting point in determining how to properly dispose of the coco levy assets and come up with an investment portfolio strategy for the benefit of the coconut industry and the country’s estimated 2.5 million coconut farmers.”

The DOF noted that under RA 11524, the COA had been mandated to, among others, “audit the inventory done by the PCGG on the coco levy assets to determine the completeness of said inventory, establish the reasonableness of the asset valuation, trace the flow of the coconut levy funds.”