Supreme Joke of the Century

Telltale Signs

By Rodel Rodis

I was president of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) in 1989 when the city’s Municipal Railways (SF Muni) sought our commission’s approval of its purchase of a piece of property in San Francisco that was owned by the Philippine government. Muni officials informed us that the property was sequestered by the Philippine Commission on Good Government (PCGG) because it was owned by Marcos crony Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco and purchased with Coco Levy Funds.

When I inquired further, I learned from a lawyer familiar with the Cojuangco property that it was purchased as a warehouse for his Philippine copra products. Former San Francisco Mayor Joe Alioto, an anti-trust litigation specialist, had threatened to file a federal anti-trust lawsuit against Cojuangco contending that the Philippine coconut industry was a “monopoly” controlled by him. The lawsuit was never filed, the lawyer told me, after Alioto received $5 million.

Two years later in 1991, I related this Cojuangco episode to then Sen. Joseph “Erap” Estrada who was visiting San Francisco to garner support for his 1992 presidential bid. I was seated beside Estrada at a dinner at the Tito Rey of the Islands restaurant in Daly City when I told him about how Marcos alloted monopoly control of various industries to his cronies.

To Danding Cojuangco, I said, Marcos assigned the coconut industry. Coconut farmers, who number over 10,000 in 68 provinces, could not sell their products to anyone but Cojuangco. Additionally, by a presidential decree issued in 1973, Marcos directed coconut farmers pay a levy of 60 pesos for every 100 kilos of copra sold. The billions collected from this Coco Levy were then deposited in the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) which was headed by Cojuangco.

Estrada appeared genuinely surprised by the information I provided him but he remained skeptical. “But isn’t it good for the coconut farmers to have someone willing to buy their coconuts from them so they don’t have to look around for buyers?” he asked.

“Senator”, I said, “the problem is that the coconut farmers have no choice so Cojuangco can dictate the price he will pay for the coconuts and the terms of payment.”

Estrada had no response so then I said, “kawawa naman ang mga coconut farmers natin.”

Estrada jumped on my “kawawa” (pity) remark to change the subject as he looked me in the eye and told me how much his heart would ache whenever he thought about how “kawawa” the Filipino people are. That’s why he’s running for president, he said. (I had never truly appreciated how great an actor Estrada was until that moment.)

Of course the joke was on me. Soon after Estrada returned to the Philippines, he abandoned his quest for the presidency and agreed to run, successfully, as the vice-presidential candidate of Danding Cojuangco in the 1992 presidential elections.

Of course, now the joke is on all of us. On April 12, 2011, the Philippine Supreme Court, in an 8-4 majority decision, ruled that the 20% share of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) in Danding Cojuangco’s name – which was sequestered by the PCGG in 1986 after Cojuangco fled the Philippines with Marcos – was not obtained through “ill-gotten wealth”.

The issue before the Supreme Court was whether the billions of pesos collected by the Philippine government from the Coco Levy Funds and deposited in the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) owned by Cojuangco was used by him to purchase an additional 20% ownership of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) stock aside fdrom the 25% he already owned.

The coconut farmers and the PCGG contended that because the money used by Cojuangco to purchase SMC stock came from the Coco Levy Funds, the coconut farmers should be the rightful owners of the SMC stock as Cojuangco was simply a “caretaker” for the funds.

Cojuangco disputed the coco farmers’ contention and asserted that he borrowed the money from his bank and then paid it back over time so he, and he alone, is the rightful owner of the SMC shares.

The Catholic Church disagreed with Cojuangco. In their 1995 letter entitled “Preferential Option for the Poor,” Cardinal Ricardo Vidal and 96 other Catholic leaders wrote: “Levies were taxes imposed on farmers through abuse of state power… These are public funds and should be returned to the treasury.”

But eight members of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Renato Corona were apparently more concerned about protecting the rights of Danding Cojuangco who, they said, was not proven to be a crony of Marcos.

In her stinging dissent, Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales ridiculed the majority view: “The argument that Cojuangco was not a subordinate or close associate of the Marcoses is the biggest joke to hit the century.”

Aside from the fact that Cojuangco held positions that had power over coconut levy funds, Morales wrote, “Cojuangco admitted … in his answer [to the court case] that on February 25, 1986, Cojuangco left the Philippines with former President Ferdinand Marcos. Clearly, the intimate relationship between Cojuangco and Marcos equates or exceeds that of a family member or Cabinet member, since not all of Marcos’ relatives or high government ministers went with him in exile on that fateful date. If this will not prove the more than close association between Cojuangco and Marcos, the Court does not know what will.”

Anakpawis party-list Rep. Rafael Mariano denounced the Court ruling: “The Supreme Court decision is an insult to small coconut farmers long denied their just and rightful ownership of the multibillion-peso coco levy funds. It’s like rubbing salt onto the wounds inflicted against small coco farmers by the Marcos-Cojuangco political partnership.”

Bayan Muna party-list Rep, Teodoro Casino added: “If more than 200 congressmen can sign a resolution allowing Marcos to be buried as a hero at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, how hard could it be for a majority of 15 members of the Supreme Court to say that a Marcos crony did not rob coconut farmers of their money?”

Aside from Danding, is anyone else laughing at the Supreme Court’s joke of the century?

(Rodel50@aol.com or mail them to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call 415.334.7800).