Urgent action needed to save copra farmers

Due to the low price of copra which is currently selling at only P15 per kilo, the people of Glan, Sarangani province, are being overrun by a calamity. Fifteen pesos can’t buy even a kilo of rice, which is P37, and prime commodities have become too expensive for them. Eighty percent of the people of Glan depend on copra as a means of livelihood. If the price remains low at P15, some students will have to drop out of school. Business will decline and tax collection would be adversely affected.

One of the contributory causes of the drop in copra prices is the competition from African oil and other oil products. It is therefore high time President Aquino established trade relations with foreign countries in order to widen the market of Philippine-produced copra and coco products. Likewise, it is high time our government subsidized the price of copra with the billions of pesos of coco levy funds, as suggested by Sen. Joker Arroyo. The basis for the price subsidy should be the price of a kilo of rice, which is P37. If the price of copra remains at P15 per kilo, the difference of P22 must be subsidized by the government.

An office must be established in every copra-producing municipality for the disbursement of coco levy funds directly to copra producers. To prevent anomalous transactions, a monitoring team headed by an internal auditor should be created to check and verify the legality of tax declarations on coco lands, the identities of copra producers and farmers, and the authenticity of purchase invoices, which should be duly registered with the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Eventually, tax collection will increase as copra producers, farmers and traders will be compelled to declare their correct sales and profits in their income tax returns.

The price subsidy is an emergency measure needed to cushion the impact of economic depression that has hit copra producers and farmers, and their families, in our country.

—DODONG L. FLORES,

Glan, Sarangani province