By Madelaine B. Miraflor   The Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) admitted that it cannot handle the P150-billion coconut levy fund should the government decide to give it to the agency, instead of directly giving it to farmers. PCA Administrator Romulo Dela Rosa said in an interview that the agency must be massively reorganized first because it is not geared to handle funds as huge as P15 billion every year. Early this month, the Bicameral Conference Committee, chaired by Senator Cynthia Villar, passed a bill that would facilitate the release of the coco levy fund. The coco levy fund, which came from the taxes imposed on coconut farmers by the Marcos administration, is now estimated to have grown to around more than P100 billion. The Bicameral Committee agreed that the funds will be released to the PCA at P5 billion annually until it runs out, which is estimated to be within 25 years. Villar also proposed to inject additional P10 billion to the reconstituted PCA which should come from the government coffers. "We will be overwhelmed with too huge of a budget, that's why we really need to organize PCA so we can enhance our absorptive capacity," Dela Rosa said in Filipino. "Right now, we are not yet ready to handle funds like that," he added. Dela Rosa said the problem is that PCA, like any other government agencies, lacks manpower and hurrying to get more people is not going to be easy. To recall, PCA has to reduce the number of its employees by half in 2013 following a rationalization plan. The agency is still beefing up its human resource development program. "We're giving our people training and upgrading their skills," Dela Rosa said. "We are still making a study on how many people we will get and there will be a special unit dedicated to handling the coco levy funds." As part of the proposed coco levy measure, a reconstituted PCA should include six representatives from different coconut farmers' groups.