Manila: The Supreme Court affirmed that coconut farmers of the Philippine owned 24 percent of shares worth between P 100 to P 150 billion (Dh 8.33 billion to 12.5 billion) in the country's largest food conglomerate which is headed by Eduardo Cojuangco, the uncle of President Benigno Aquino, a local paper said.

Eleven justices of the Supreme Court upheld the 2004 ruling of the Sandiganbayan, an anti-graft court, that 24 percent of shares of the San Miguel Corporation, listed in the name of Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF) and its holding companies should be awarded to the government, the trust holder of the country's coconut farmers, the Inquirer said.

Three Apex Court justices, Antonio Carpio, Teresita Leonardo de Castro and Diosdado Peralta inhibited from the case.

Coconut levy fund

De Castro and Peralta were with the Sandiganbayan when the anti graft court decided on the case in 2004. At the time, Carpio was one of the petitioners who asked for the declaration of the coconut levy fund as publicly owned. Justice Arturo Brion was on leave and did not vote on the case.

The coco levy shares consists of a 753,848,312 block of shares at San Miguel and now valued at about P100 billion, but other sources said the value could reach as high as P 150 billion.

On April 12, 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that only 20 per cent of the 47 per cent shares claimed by Cojuangco in SMC, were legally acquired by the latter, and, therefore, were not part of the coconut levy funds that were being claimed by the government.

In the same ruling, the Supreme Court called for the conversion of the 24 per cent SMC shares in the names of CIIF and its companies from common shares to preferred shares and preserved the value of the 753.8 million SMC shares.

The number of shares assigned to the coco levy fund was diluted from 27 to 24 per cent because of the investments made by Japanese brewer Kirin in SMC.

From 1973 to 1982, former dictator Ferdinand Marcos collected coco levy funds from coconut farmers. He appointed his crony, Eduardo Cojuangco as administrator of the coco levy funds.

The government claimed that the funds were eventually used to buy coconut trading firms, oil mills, shares of stock in San Miguel Corporation, and a bank, the United Coconut Planters Bank where the funds were deposited. Cojuangco had served as president and director of the said bank.

Former President Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino and Eduardo Cojuangco were estranged cousins when the government claimed the coco levy funds in behalf of the coconut farmers, when she became president in 1986.

At the time, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), an agency created by former president Aquino to recover the alleged ill-gotten wealth of Marcos, sequestered the coco levy shares on suspicion that they were illegally acquired by Cojuangco (for Marcos).

President Benigno Aquino recently ordered a task force to allow the coco levy funds to benefit coconut farmers and the coconut industry.

Coconut oil exports reached $1.17 billion; desiccated coconut exports, $217 million; and copra meal, $46.42 million; coconut juice, $ 8.3 million, 2011 records showed.

The government is planning to plant 13 million coconut trees nationwide and to fertilise 20 million senile trees, to increase coconut production to three million metric tons in 2012.