Thelma Inocencio fills up a form to claim some of her savings from the Cebu CFI Community Cooperative. (CDN PHOTO/VICTOR ANTHONY SILVA)
Sixty-year-old street sweeper Thelma Inocencio never met Esperanza Fiel Garcia, but their lives have a common thread: an organization that the Garcia matriarch founded.
Inocencio, who works for the Mandaue city government, said she never feared about having nowhere to go when she needs financial help.
For her, the Cebu CFI Community Cooperative is a lifesaver.
“Og naay emergency or naay kinahanglan gamitan og kwarta, makaari gyud ka, maka huwam gyud ka. Naa gyud kay madala inig hawa nimo (Whenever there is an emergency, you can always go (to CFI) and for sure, you will never go home empty-handed),” she said.
Despite being a single mother of two employed as a metro aide for nearly 40 years, Inocencio said she still manages to save part of her income that she invests in CFI.
She said frugality and hard work are values she had to learn to survive after her husband left 30 years ago and she had to raise their son and daughter by herself.
Her estranged husband now lives with another woman in Catmon town in northern Cebu.
“Naningkamot lang pod gyud ko og maayo aron mabuhi akong duha ka anak. Masigo ra man pod namo akong sweldo (I had no choice but to strive hard to raise my two children alone. What I earned was enough for the three of us),” she said.
Then and now, Inocencio wakes up every day at 4 a.m. to get ready for work — keeping Mandaue City clean.
She sweeps sidewalks, picks up trash and makes sure gutters aren’t clogged.
She does this job like clock work, from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and again from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Inocencio says she earns only enough for herself and her two children in the last 37 years as a metro aide, but she still managed to send one of her nieces to school.
“Maluoy ko sa akong manghod, ang mama ani akong pag-umangkon, kay naglabada ra man intawon ug buwag pod siya sa iyang bana (I pity my younger sister, the mother of my niece, because she only earns money from doing laundry, and she’s also separated from her husband),” she told Cebu Daily News.
When she started as a street cleaner, she only earned P10 a day. Now, she earns up to P12,000 in a month.
Her eldest child, Jairus, 36, now works at a construction site in uptown Cebu City while her daughter, Jessa, 35, works at the Mactan Export Processing Zone.
Her niece Jaslyn Macalolooy, 20, whom she helped send to school, now teaches elementary subjects at a Christian school in Mandaue City.
Legacy
Inocencio says that being a member of a community cooperative has made it easier for her to manage her expenses.
For almost 10 years, Thelma has been a member of the Cebu CFI Community Cooperative, founded by the late Esperanza Fiel Garcia, a retired judge and the matriarch of the Garcia political clan.
Garcia matriarch Esperanza Fiel Garcia is joined by her husband, former Deputy Speaker Pablo Garcia, her daughter then governor and now Rep. Gwendolyn Garcia of Cebu’s 3rd district and Georgia Osmena during the lighting of the Christmas tree in this December 2008 file photo.
Under Garcia’s watch, CFI now has about 90,000 members and P9 billion in assets.
Among many who knew Garcia, CFI will be her lasting legacy. Garcia, fondly called “Inday,” succumbed to a lingering illness on Feb. 1.
Her remains will be interred today at the Angelicum memorial park in Canduman, Mandaue City following a Mass at 1 p.m. at the St. Thérèse Parish Church in Barangay Lahug, Cebu City.
Turning CFI into a huge organization is a feat for a cooperative that Garcia, then a clerk of court in the Court of First Instance (CFI) in Cebu, founded in 1970 as a means to combat moneylenders who took advantage of cash-strapped court employees.
Beginning
With the help of then Executive Judge Francisco Tantuico and Scarboro Missions priests, a Canadian Catholic mission society based in Leyte, the court employees went through seminars on cooperatives and were organized.
Initially, only 29 court employees decided to join, all of whom gave fix deposits totaling only P200.
That seed money became the initial capitalization of the Cebu CFI Credit Union, Inc., registered under the Cooperative Administration Office on July 23, 1970, according to a narrative of the co-op’s beginnings posted on the CFI’s website.
CFI decided to open itself to non-court workers when in 1975, then President Ferdinand Marcos issued Presidential Decree No. 175 that required a cooperative to have at least 250 members and a minimum capitalization of P30,000.
It was then that even vendors from Carbon market got to become members of the cooperative.
And in the nearly five decades since its inception, CFI has not only been able to bring financial relief to its members but has also put up its own building, built a school for the children of its members and provided them with healthcare benefits.
Future
It was not a surprise then that 10 years ago Inocencio, after hearing from her fellow metro aides about the CFI cooperative, decided to enlist as a member.
Her first loan was P30,000, with P5,000 from the amount deposited with the cooperative as her share capital. Now, her share has grown to P20,000.
When she was still a new member, Inocencio recalls she used to take out loans twice a year.
Now the borrowings have tapered, she said, as she has been drawing more on her savings for her basic needs.
Earlier this week, Thelma said she withdrew P1,700 from her savings to buy groceries for her family.
Inocencio does not intend to get a loan anytime soon.
That’s because five years from now, she will be retiring from work and wants to have all her dues to CFI paid by 2018 to secure her future as a retiree.
Aside from loans, members may also avail of healthcare services including hospitalization, consultation, laboratory examinations and other forms of medical assistance.
Inocencio said becoming a CFI co-op member has been one of the best decisions she ever made.