How SC failed in its SMC ruling

The Supreme Court, in an April 12 decision on the 20-percent shares of San Miguel Corp. (SMC), ruled in favor of Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. on purely technical grounds. The Court said that the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) was not able to prove that the shares were ill-gotten, and no link was established between former dictator Ferdinand Marcos and Cojuangco. Despite an admission by Cojuangco’s camp that the shares were acquired through loans and cash advances from the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) and the Coconut Industry Investment Fund Oil Mills (CIIF), respectively, seven justices argued it was merely a “proposed evidence” that could not be binding. This prompted one of the associate justices to call the decision “the biggest joke of the century.”

The decision caused the truth to be concealed by plain technicalities. In a related case, the high court in February 1993 said that, “The utilization and proper management of the coconut levy funds, raised as they were by the State’s police and taxing powers, are certainly the concern of government. It cannot be denied that it was the welfare of the entire nation that provided the prime moving factor for the imposition of the levy. It cannot be denied that the coconut industry is one of the major industries supporting the national economy. It is, therefore, the State’s concern to make it a strong and secure source not only of the livelihood of a significant segment of the population but also of export earnings, the sustained growth of which is one of the imperatives of economic stability.”

Such is the grave importance of recovering the coconut levies for the farmers and the industry.  The coconut industry provided our economy with more than a billion US dollars in recent years. So unfortunate that the Supreme Court majority opted to shut their eyes to this stark reality.

In truth, while the decision states that PCGG did not prove the shares to be ill-gotten wealth, the Court did not even concern itself to ask Cojuangco to prove he acquired the shares with his own funds, not with funds from UCPB and CIIF, both declared by the Sandiganbayan to be public and owned by government.

Private intervenors to the coco levy cases have asked repeatedly for an oral argument to prove this point in Court but they were never given the chance. In the interest of the millions of impoverished coconut farmers and the industry, in the interest of truth and justice, Cojuangco should prove that he, indeed, acquired the shares through his own personal means without using public funds. The quest for truth must go on and so must the court trial.

—JOEY T. FAUSTINO, executive director, Coconut Industry Reform (COIR) Movement Inc., 63 Masikap ext., Central, Diliman, Quezon City