Over 300 thousand coco farmers in Central Visayas urged to register

CEBU, Philippines — The Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) in Central Visayas is in a race against time to register more than 300,000 coconut farmers.

At present, only around six percent of the expected target number of farmers in the region have registered in the National Coconut Farmers Registry System (NCFRS) and be able to benefit from the long-awaited coco levy fund.

The region targets to register 338,000 coconut farmers, 92,059 of which are from Cebu, 124,000 from Bohol, 104,000 from Negros Oriental, and 17,000 from Siquijor. The target number of beneficiaries was based on PCA-7’s last registration list.

With over 300,000 of farmers who are yet to register, PCA-7 acting regional manager Brendan Trasmonte admitted to having a big challenge to get it done by the end of May of this year owing to manpower dilemma.

RA 11524 (The Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund Act) requires coconut farmers to be part of a Coconut Farmers Registry, which the PCA should update and complete within 90 days from the effectivity of the law.

Trasmonte said PCA-7 is mandated to submit the list of registered coconut farmers to the Office of the President within the said period.

“We are faced with a challenge, limited kaayo among personnel. Plus problems with the 90-day period nga e-submit ang list...Mga 40 days na lang, mo-end naman ta ani June 11, but sa among level, May 31 deadline kay we need more time pa para other processing and encoding. ” added Trasmonte.

With this, she called on the local government units, government offices, farmers’ groups, and media to help out in the info-dissemination and registration process.

She also urged coconut farmers to be proactive and register so that they can avail of the benefits from the coco levy fund.

“We are calling for farmers to register now to be able to avail of the benefits of the coco levy fund. We are also coordination with the LGUs and farmer groups to help us out in the registration.”

“For those LGUs that we have yet to visit, you may also coordinate with us. PCA will orient in filling up forms. The more help we can get, the better,” she said.

Trasmonte said the office already had a survey from 2015 to 2018, but it needs to be re-surveyed and upgraded.

“The data from 2015-2018 registrations need to be looked into. It’s necessary to check if the farmers are still alive or already retired from farming. Also, the list needs to be updated with the new farmers,” she said.

Trasmonte made the call after Republic Act 11524 was finally passed into law.

President Rodrigo Duterte signed the act into law last February 26. The law took effect on March 13.

RA 11524 aims to develop the Philippine coconut industry using recovered coco levy assets, which were declared state-owned by the Supreme Court less than a decade ago.

Its passage paved the way for the release of around P75 billion coco levy fund, the tax collected from farmers during the Marcos Administration from 1971 to 1983.

Process

To speed up the process, PCA set up different ways to register including mass caravan/registration, walk-in to its different provincial and regional offices even during weekends from 8 am to 5 pm and via online thru bit.ly/ncfrscocolevy  ( https://register.pca-webapps.com/ ). One can also download forms thru the said link and submit accomplished form to the nearest PCA office.

For coconut farmer-owners, any of the documents will do for verification—certificate of land transfer, emancipated patent, individual certificate of land ownership award, collective CLOA, co-ownership CLOA, agricultural sales patent, homestead patent, certificate of title or regular title, certificate of ancestral domain title, certificate of ancestral land title, tax declaration, deed of sale, extrajudicial partition or free patent.

For coconut farmer-tenants, they can bring the lease holding agreement of certification showing agreement with the farm owner and a photocopy of farm owner’s valid ID. — KQD (FREEMAN)