Published March 4, 2021, 12:19 AM President Duterte last Friday signed Republic Act 11524 creating the “Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund,” using some P75 billion known as “coco levy funds” generated from taxes collected from coconut farmers, millers, refiners, exporters, and other sectors of the coconut industry during the Marcos administration. The coconut farmers were taxed through various laws and levies through presidential decrees during the martial law years, The government collected P15 to P20 per P100 earned by the farmers in their sale of copra. By 1982, the coco levy funds amounted to P70 billion. The funds were supposed to be used to develop the coconut industry, but they were instead invested in various companies of Marcos cronies, including big oil mills. Coco farmers’ protests grew and became part of the growing anti-Marcos movement in the countryside.