Yes, use coco levy fund for coco farmers’ benefit

This is a reaction to the letter, “No more excuse for delay in use of coco levy fund,” of Joey Faustino, executive director of the Coconut Industry Reform Movement (Opinion, 3/18/15).

First of all, I congratulate the 71 coconut farmers who marched from Davao City to Malacañang to demand that our government use the P71-billion coco levy fund for the benefit of small coconut farmers, in particular.

Secondly, as a coconut farmer myself, I am one with Faustino when he pointed out that “[t]here simply exists no more reason to make the coconut farmers wait in vain.”

Above all, it behooves President Aquino to issue an executive order authorizing the use of the coco levy fund for the rehabilitation of coconut plantations heavily devastated by both the cocolisap and brontispa longissima infestations, especially those in Southern Tagalog.

As the saying goes, Aanhin pa ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo (Of what use is the grass, if the horse is dead)?

—CRISOSTOMO B. VILAR, former vice mayor, Pagsanjan, Laguna, and chair, Cocofed, Pagsanjan Chapter