The Supreme Court has spoken with finality after dribbling the coconut levy ball for decades to the detriment of the lowly coconut farmers who were thus deprived of the use of funds extracted from them by Marcos edicts. These levies coming from the blood, sweat and tears of alienated and impoverished coconut farmers were leveraged by its handlers to produce whopping fortunes for themselves without leaving any crumbs for its true owners.
And now the industry is awash with money creating a mad scramble for its use among government entities acting like hungry dogs over a piece of meat. Unless properly managed this could easily produce a moral hazard—defined as the propensity of government to indulge in a spending orgy that will not redound to the interest of the beneficial owners of the fund—the coconut industry. Alternatively this bonanza could give way to the Dutch Disease, a situation occurring in the Netherlands upon the discovery of the North Sea gas which instead of favoring the economy led to negative consequences as the newly-discovered wealth was frittered away in less than economically productive undertakings.
Continue reading with one of these options:
Ad-free access
P 80 per month
(billed annually at P 960)
- Unlimited ad-free access to website articles
- Limited offer: Subscribe today and get digital edition access for free (accessible with up to 3 devices)