United Coconut Planters Bank

Also known as: UCPB · Cocobank · First United Bank

Definition

The United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) was a Philippine universal bank that began in 1963 as a small commercial bank and became, through the coconut-levy machinery of the martial-law years, the bank of the coconut industry — founded on May 15, 1963 in Manila as First United Bank, it was acquired in mid-1975 by the Philippine Coconut Authority acting for “the coconut farmers,” renamed UCPB, and built with money exacted from those same farmers by decree. The acquisition was executed under the Agreement for the Acquisition of a Commercial Bank for the Benefit of the Coconut Farmers approved by Presidential Decree No. 755 (July 29, 1975), which directed the PCA “to draw and utilize the collections under the Coconut Consumers’ Stabilization Fund” to pay for the bank. (Wikipedia, PD 755 — LawPhil)

The bank’s later history is a court-record register: sequestered by the Presidential Commission on Good Government after February 1986, litigated for a quarter century in Civil Case No. 0033, and finally declared by the Supreme Court in 2012 to have been bought with public funds — its farmers’ shares owned by the Republic in trust for all coconut farmers. The state’s stake later rose to 97 percent, and under Executive Order No. 142, signed June 25, 2021, UCPB was merged into the Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK), the merger taking effect March 1, 2022; the bank that the levies built thus ended as a state bank’s branch network. (COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012, Wikipedia)

Identities

Source	Identifier	URL
Wikipedia	United Coconut Planters Bank	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Coconut_Planters_Bank
Wikidata	United Coconut Planters Bank (Q7887615)	https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7887615
DBpedia	United_Coconut_Planters_Bank	https://dbpedia.org/page/United_Coconut_Planters_Bank
ProductOntology	N/A	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A	N/A
MeSH	N/A	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A	N/A
Google Scholar	United Coconut Planters Bank coconut levy PD 755 sequestration PCGG Civil Case 0033 Land Bank merger EO 142	https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22United+Coconut+Planters+Bank%22+coconut+levy
ConceptNet	N/A	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A	N/A

Also Known As

UCPB
Cocobank
First United Bank

Examples and Analogies

A bank bought with a tax: the purchase-money chain is the story in miniature — a stabilization levy collected on every first sale of copra, directed by decree into a bank acquisition, and reimbursed to the PCA from the Coconut Consumers’ Stabilization Fund; the farmers paid for the bank at the point of sale of their own crop. (PD 755 — LawPhil, COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012)
The farmers’ bank the farmers never owned: PD 755 promised the acquired bank’s shares “for free” to coconut farmers, but the free-distribution scheme was struck down as unconstitutional and the shares were declared public; the institution kept the farmers’ name for five decades while its ownership was decided by courts. (PD 755 — LawPhil, COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012)
From sequestered asset to state bank branch: UCPB’s endgame inverted its founding — a bank captured by decree from private owners became, by executive order, part of the government’s largest development bank, an asset disposition executed as a merger rather than a sale. (Wikipedia, RA 11524 — LawPhil)
Verified data (the institutional register):
Founding: May 15, 1963, Manila, as First United Bank, a small commercial bank that began with four branches (Wikipedia)
Acquisition: May–July 1975 — option over 72.2 percent (144,400 shares) of First United Bank, exercised through the PCA under PD 755; 64.98 percent registered in the PCA’s name for the farmers, 7.22 percent taken by Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. as his option premium; PCA initially used about ₱150 million of its own funds and reimbursed itself from the levy fund (COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012, Cojuangco v. Republic, Nov. 27, 2012)
Universal banking: February 1981 — the first private commercial bank granted a universal banking license in the Philippines (Wikipedia)
Sequestration and litigation: PCGG sequestration after February 1986; Sandiganbayan Partial Summary Judgment of July 11, 2003 in Civil Case No. 0033-A; Supreme Court resolutions of January 24, 2012 and November 27, 2012 (COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012, Cojuangco v. Republic, Nov. 27, 2012)
State ownership: July 2020 — conversion of ₱12 billion in notes raised the government’s stake from about 75 percent to 97 percent (Wikipedia)
End: EO No. 142 signed June 25, 2021; merger into LANDBANK effective March 1, 2022, LANDBANK the surviving entity (Wikipedia)
Structured records: Wikidata and DBpedia catalog the bank as a former universal bank merged into the Land Bank of the Philippines in 2022 (Wikidata, DBpedia)

Usage Scenarios

1. Litigation and Case-Record Research

Lawyers and researchers of ill-gotten wealth use UCPB as the anchor asset of Civil Case No. 0033: the 64.98 percent “farmers’ shares” declared owned by the Republic in trust for all coconut farmers (affirmed January 24, 2012), and the 7.22 percent option shares taken by Cojuangco ordered reconveyed (November 27, 2012) — the twin rulings that settled the bank’s ownership thirty-six years after its capture. (COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012, Cojuangco v. Republic, Nov. 27, 2012)

2. Banking and Financial History

Historians of Philippine banking trace UCPB as the levy era’s financial engine — the first private universal bank (1981), a MegaLink co-founder (1990), remembered under its “Cocobank” trade name, and from the 2010s a state-controlled institution absorbed into LANDBANK — a single balance sheet across the whole arc of Philippine finance from 1963 to 2022. (Wikipedia)

3. GOCC Governance and Divestment Practice

Students of government corporate control use the UCPB endgame — the 97 percent stake of 2020, the merger ordered by EO 142 in 2021 over the alternative of privatization — as the standing Philippine case of divestment-by-merger, the disposition route this wiki’s Land Bank of the Philippines entry documents from the surviving bank’s side. (Wikipedia, RA 11524 — LawPhil)

4. Administering the Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund

Implementers of RA 11524 (February 26, 2021) work from the statute’s own definition of Coconut Levy Assets — which names “the shares of stock in United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) that were determined to be owned by the government” — and its directive that levy assets be sold within five years, with the proceeds remitted to the trust fund. (RA 11524 — LawPhil)

Strategies

Read the instruments in sequence: PD 755 (1975) authorized the purchase and the levy draw; the Sandiganbayan’s 2003 partial summary judgment declared the farmers’ block public; the Supreme Court’s 2012 rulings closed the ownership question; RA 11524 and EO 142 (2021) disposed of the asset — each step cites its predecessor, and the chain, not any single decree, is the history. (PD 755 — LawPhil, COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012, RA 11524 — LawPhil)
Keep the share blocks apart: the 64.98 percent farmers’ block, Cojuangco’s 7.22 percent option premium, and the post-1986 government recapitalization stake traveled through different dockets and doctrines — merging them into one “coco levy block” misstates every ruling. (COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012, Cojuangco v. Republic, Nov. 27, 2012, Wikipedia)
Treat the bank’s history as court record: the founding events are known chiefly through litigation documents — the option price of ₱200 per share, the ₱150 million initial outlay, the more-than-₱10-million levy cost of the option shares — and are best cited to the decisions that found them. (COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012, Cojuangco v. Republic, Nov. 27, 2012)
Attribute the ownership figures to their dates: “72.2 percent acquired in 1975,” “75 to 97 percent state-owned in 2020,” and “merged 2022” describe different moments; the bank never had one stable owner across its life. (COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012, Wikipedia)

Security and Safety Measures

Judicial custody before disposition: after sequestration the levy-funded shares stood in custodia legis, with ownership questions confined to the courts — the reason the bank’s shares could not simply be sold while Civil Case No. 0033 was pending. (COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012)
Statutory ring-fencing of proceeds: RA 11524 requires levy-asset sale proceeds, less approved expenses, to be remitted to the Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund, capitalized on a fixed schedule of ₱10 billion, ₱10 billion, ₱15 billion, ₱15 billion, and ₱25 billion across five years — a statutory channel against diversion. (RA 11524 — LawPhil)
Regulated disposition only: the statute designates the disposition entities and limits them to public bidding, negotiated sale, lease, or similar divestment forms — the framework under which the eventual UCPB Savings Bank sale proceeded. (RA 11524 — LawPhil, Wikipedia)
Depositor continuity through the merger: with LANDBANK as surviving entity, UCPB’s depositors passed to a supervised universal bank within the Philippine deposit-insurance framework this wiki’s Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation entry documents. (Wikipedia)
Document discipline on the “scam” shorthand: popular accounts compress the levies, the acquisition, and the alleged diversions into one narrative; the court record separates what was adjudicated (public funds, reconveyance) from what was not — an archive-level distinction researchers should preserve. (COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012, Cojuangco v. Republic, Nov. 27, 2012)

Historical Context

First United Bank opened on May 15, 1963 as a minor Manila commercial bank of four branches. Its transformation came from the levy regime: after martial law imposed first a ₱0.55 and then, from 1973, a ₱15-per-100-kilogram stabilization levy on copra, PD 755 (July 29, 1975) approved the acquisition agreement under which the PCA — headed by Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile, with Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. negotiating the purchase and taking the bank’s presidency — bought the Cojuangco family’s controlling block “in the name of coconut farmers.” The option covered 72.2 percent of the bank at ₱200 per share; the PCA paid with roughly ₱150 million of its own money and then reimbursed itself from the Coconut Consumers’ Stabilization Fund; 64.98 percent was registered in the PCA’s name and 7.22 percent went to Cojuangco as his premium. Renamed United Coconut Planters Bank, the institution became the treasury of the levy empire — the lender that later financed the CIIF holding companies’ purchase of the San Miguel Corporation block, as this wiki’s Coconut levy funds entry records — and in February 1981 it became the first private commercial bank granted a universal banking license. (Wikipedia, PD 755 — LawPhil, COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012)

After February 1986 the PCGG sequestered the UCPB shares and filed Civil Case No. 0033. The Sandiganbayan’s partial summary judgment of July 11, 2003 declared the farmers’ 64.98 percent owned by the Republic; on January 24, 2012 the Supreme Court affirmed, holding the levies prima facie public funds and striking down as unconstitutional the decree provisions (of PD 755, 961, and 1468) that had styled them otherwise, and on November 27, 2012 it ordered Cojuangco’s 7.22 percent option shares — which had cost the PCA more than ₱10 million in levy money — reconveyed to the Republic in trust for all coconut farmers. The state’s stake rose to 97 percent in July 2020 through the conversion of ₱12 billion in notes; RA 11524 (February 26, 2021) listed the government’s UCPB shares among the Coconut Levy Assets to be sold within five years; and EO 142 (June 25, 2021) chose merger instead — UCPB passing into LANDBANK effective March 1, 2022, with its thrift subsidiary UCPB Savings Bank later put up for sale in 2024 and its acquisition by Philippine Veterans Bank reported approved in December 2025. (COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012, Cojuangco v. Republic, Nov. 27, 2012, Wikipedia, RA 11524 — LawPhil)

Challenges and Controversies

Public Funds or the Farmers’ Property

The central question — whether the levies that bought the bank were taxes, public funds, or the farmers’ own money — ran from 1986 to 2012. The Court’s answer was layered: the exactions were imposed by law for a public purpose and were prima facie public; the shares they bought were owned by the government in trust for all coconut farmers; and PD 755’s promise of free share distribution to farmers was unconstitutional. The farmers received a trust, not title. (COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012, PD 755 — LawPhil)

The Cojuangco Option Shares

The 7.22 percent premium was litigated to a split result: the PCA-Cojuangco agreement was a valid contract with consideration, the Court held in 2012, but paying a private individual’s premium with more than ₱10 million of levy money was a use of public funds for private benefit that the law would not allow — the shares were ordered reconveyed. The ruling is the standing precedent on what public funds cannot buy. (Cojuangco v. Republic, Nov. 27, 2012)

Delay and the Unfinished Benefits

More than three decades separated the sequestration from the trust fund: farmers who paid the levies of the 1970s died before RA 11524’s benefits began, and the bank their money bought spent most of its life as contested property — the delay this wiki’s Coconut levy funds entry documents as the litigation’s human cost. (COCOFED v. Republic, Jan. 24, 2012, RA 11524 — LawPhil)

Merger or Privatization

The final disposition was contested policy: RA 11524’s default was sale within five years, but the government concluded privatization could not recover its investment — estimated by the Department of Finance at roughly ₱100 billion, as this wiki’s Land Bank of the Philippines entry records — and coconut-farmer groups objected that a bank built from levy money required their participation in any disposition. EO 142’s merger answered the question by dissolving it. (RA 11524 — LawPhil, Wikipedia)