AFTER trying to peddle an out-of-court settlement in the already won case over the CIIF-San Miguel Corp. (SMC) shares, the government is now, again, suddenly very interested in disposing of those shares. The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), also under Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera, asked the Supreme Court to allow the government to sell a 24-percent stake in SMC. (Inquirer, 6/24/09)

It may be recalled that two years back, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) under Camilo Sabio tried to negotiate a compromise settlement with Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. and Cocofed, also with the end in view of liquefying the same SMC shares. This compromise, the PCGG claimed, was better than recognizing the 2007 Sandiganbayan ruling that declared the CIIF-SMC shares to be public, owned by government in trust for all the coconut farmers. However, this proposal seemed to have fizzled out.

Meanwhile, SMC unexpectedly grew so aggressive in acquiring huge shares in non-food and non-beverage companies (e.g., Petron, Meralco, Liberty TelCom). It even expressed interest in running the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, prompting farmer groups to start asking how the acquisitions have affected the SMC shares. But the government, PCGG and OSG were nowhere to give answers. So various groups and individuals under the Multi-Sectoral Task Force (MSTF) for coco levy recovery filed a Motion for Clarification in court.

About the same time, Representative Proceso Alcala filed House Resolution 1024, asking government agencies to explain what had happened to the coco levy shares in SMC. In both cases, the PCGG offered only motherhood statements.

So why the rush to sell the ?coco levy shares? in SMC? The solicitor general says the sale should be made before the shares suffer further losses due to depreciation. Is this an admission that SMC?s aggressive acquisitions have caused its shares to depreciate? Could coconut farmers end up gaining shares that may be found nowhere?

On the other hand, with the sale, the government will surely be in possession of some P50 billion in liquid cash. To this day, there has been no assurance that the real coconut farmers will benefit from this huge amount. In fact, during the negotiations for a compromise agreement, the only issue tackled was of percentage sharing between government and the compromising parties. Similarly, the permission sought from the Supreme Court to sell the shares makes no mention where the funds will go or how it will be used. What is clear is that the Arroyo administration does not recognize the Sandiganbayan decisions declaring the coconut farmers in more than 20,000 barangays as the beneficial owners of coco levy funds.

Is the rush to sell the shares linked to the 2010 elections?

?JOEY T. FAUSTINO,
executive director, Coconut Industry Reform Movement (COIR) Inc., 84 Masikap Ext., Barangay Central, Diliman, Quezon City