New man at the helm of co-op development agency

The appointment of Orlando Ravanera as chief of the Co-operative Development Authority CDA has taken many people in the co-op sector by surprise because they thought filling-up the top post in the CDA Board of Administrators was not a priority in the Executive Department.

The CDA chairmanship including two slots in the board, one each for Visayas and Mindanao had been vacant since last year. After the term of then CDA Chairman Emmanuel Santiaguel expired in July 2014, Administrator Eulogio Castillo took over as OIC Chairman until last week when P-Noy appointed Ravanera, who was then director of CDA Region 10 based in Cagayan de Oro City.

The appointment was signed last March 11 but the notice came out only last week.

It was CDA Region 7 Director Philip Deri who tipped me off on the welcome news last Thursday, adding that Ravanera’s oath taking was taking place that very same day. The two vacant slots in the board went to Benjie Oliva, a Boholano and Paisal Cali of Mindanao.

Ravanera served as CDA Executive Director during Santiaguel’s 3-year stint in the agency.  According to well-placed sources, the latter picked Ravanera as point man because he knows the sector like the palm of his hand. As executive director, Ravanera came up with an effective road map that enabled CDA to clean up the list of registered co-ops by ridding it of inactive and ailing primaries either through mergers or dissolution leading to consolidation.

As a result, the agency was strengthened and revitalized, adding 6 million more co-op members to the list of 7 million. On the whole, it was a tough task but Santiaguel pulled it off with Ravanera’s backing. Talks have it that he was actually being groomed to take over the agency after Santiaguel but to the surprise of many in both the agency and the sector, Ravanera was made to revert back to his previous post. Talks were rife that he stepped on the toes of some powerful people.

There is a perception that Ravanera comes across as too much of a co-op crusader — one who is unable to harmonize the interest of the state with that of the third sector. I heard some people say he is better off working in the sector rather than in the regulatory agency. I think this is a slanted observation because it implies the regulatory body can fulfill its mandate without really fully knowing the sector.

I had the privilege of meeting Ravanera in July 2013 during the Sustainable Agriculture and Cooperative Marketing Forum sponsored by the CDA in Cagayan de Oro City. He was then busy dividing his time between office work and preparations for the Mindanao-wide forum not to mention his media engagements.  (He writes opinion for a local paper).

In the aftermath of Typhoon Sendong, the co-op development official founded the environmental group “Sulog” to highlight the massive plunder of Cagayan de Oro’s forest ecosystem.

I have read some of Ravanera’s articles and what impressed me lately is his no-nonsense stance with respect to the privatization of the Agus-Pulangui hydro-electric power plants (HEPs). The privatization of the Agus-Pulangui HEPs has set off a controversy in Mindanao because it has pitted 4,700 co-operatives based in Mindanao, which are keen to acquire and manage the HEPs, against big business who are also interested to acquire Agus-Pulangui.

Some state bureaucrats would rather take the role of a fence-sitter on this issue, that is, not siding with either sector, but Ravanera bravely took up the cudgels for the Mindanao Energy Cooperative. I guess after Malacañang announced his appointment, the celebration was loudest in the Mindanao electric co-ops consortium.

Ravanera will be hitting the ground running as he takes on the lead role in the CDA.  His first engagement happens in Cebu City today, when he presides over the full-board meeting of the CDA as well as the 3rd CDA Performance and Planning Conference together with regional directors and key agency officials all over the country.

Region 7 Director Philip Deri told this corner the CPAPC is an institutional tool to assess the status of the agency’s physical and financial accomplishments versus the annual targets.

Apart from internal concerns, the meeting with local government units looks interesting because many Cebu LGU’s host active and dynamic co-operative development councils than enhance the workings of many self-help organizations.  In other words, Ravanera will feel at home in Cebu.

I got invited to the CDA forum at the end of the three-day top level meeting courtesy of Director Deri so I look forward not only to gather the news but also tweak the attention of the new CDA chief.