Inclusive Coco Billions. To ACPC 60, UPLB-ICRISAT 30 & R Davide 10 B
MANILA: The Coco Levy Funds can make you coco loco if you don't watch out! They are reported to be a gargantuan sum of PhP 100-150 billion that belongs to the coconut farmers who were unjustly taxed in the time of President Ferdinand Marcos ( Wikipedia ). I'll take the higher sum. Do you have an idea how much money that is? To raise PhP 150 billion, if you were earning PhP 25,000 a month, it will take 12 months for 500,000 of you to earn that total. Those billions belong to whom they came from and should be spent wisely for their sake. If the government suddenly distributed the funds equally to 3 million coco farmers, that big sum will amount to little: only PhP 50,000 per head. We have to use our head and think intelligently about how to spend such a bank-full of money before we ask the government to release it. No wonder, I understand that groups like the National Academy of Science & Technology (NAST) have been discussing why and how the coconut industry can diversify