Coco farmer concurs with justice’s dissenting opinion

I AM one with Senior Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales when she wrote that she “believes that businessman Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. and the late President Ferdinand Marcos had ties so close that to claim otherwise would be a joke.” (Inquirer, 4/14/11)

Moreover, I lament the Supreme Court decision declaring Cojuangco as the “legitimate owner of 20 percent of conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC).”

Above all, being a small coconut farmer (I cultivate five hectares of coconut plantation intercropped with lanzones, rambutan and pomelo trees), I concur with Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano when he says that the Supreme Court decision is a “big blow to the coconut farmers’ struggle for justice and recovery of the levy funds.”

—CRISOSTOMO B. VILAR,
vice mayor,
Pagsanjan, Laguna