Duterte’s take on cooperatives

If there’s any sector that looks forward to the election of a new president, it is the cooperative movement in the country.  This is because under the Aquino administration, the sector has not only been largely ignored but also dealt with an almost fatal blow.

In October 2014, the PH cooperative movement launched the year-long centennial celebration, an event that took place in Cebu City.   To invite attention and create public awareness of the contribution of cooperatives to economic development, CDA joined hands with different cooperatives and local government units throughout the country in organizing cluster congresses.

Cooperatives are synonymous with social enterprises; they are engaged in banking, insurance, transportation, electric and water distribution, tourism, food production, agriculture, education, labor, etc.

“From womb to tomb” is the catchphrase that embodies the services provided by co-ops.    The great thing is that members know their co-op because they generally live in the same neighborhood and they know the people who manage their hard-earned money.

The idea of cluster congresses was to draw feedback from the co-op hub, take consensus and map out solutions.  CDA and stakeholders successfully conducted these focused group discussions from the last quarter of 2015 until the last quarter of 2016.   That is a span of one year and three months, but President Aquino has never appeared in any of these congresses that took place in different key cities.

In fact, he did not even show up during the culminating activity of the centennial celebration held in October last year in Manila, much to the dismay of co-op members and leaders who traveled far and wide just to take part in the great milestone.

Last year the Department of Finance drafted a legislative measure that aimed to lift the tax exemption privileges of cooperatives, which is guaranteed by Republic Act 9520.  The move was met by strong resistance from the sector, a protest drive that spilled into the social media.

Fearing a political backlash, lawmakers who supported the measure backtracked and the move was quickly dropped. The cooperative movement survived the assault because of the election season.

Now that the country awaits the election of a new president, who, based on popularity surveys indicate will win by a margin of at least 5 million votes, cooperators are interested to know what would be Rodrigo Duterte’s take on cooperatives.

I can cite two instances in which he talked about cooperatives throughout the campaign.

The first one was during the first leg of the presidential debates in Cagayan de Oro City.  During the verbal joust, he was asked about his poverty alleviation programs to which he promised to set aside P1 billion for cooperatives. Whether he will funnel state funds to co-op enterprises or to the regulatory body, he did not clarify.

The other occasion was during his dialogue with the Makati Business Club wherein, while he did not actually mention the word cooperative, I somehow got the feeling he had a mind to.

During the biz forum, Duterte raised the problem of loan-sharking, a usurious lending business operations cornered by Indian nationals in urban and rural centers.

Called “Bombay,” the loan sharks caught the ire of Mayor Duterte because of the onerous burdens they impose upon the hapless population.

I was waiting for Duterte to push cooperatives because thousands of cooperatives have actually redeemed peoples and communities from the clutches of loan-sharks.

In fact, he need not look far because in the neighboring Tagum City in Davao del Norte, there’s a remarkable and multi-award-winning cooperative called Tagum Cooperative.  I don’t believe Duterte has not heard about Tagum Cooperative and its dynamic leader Norma Pereyras who tends to more than P500 million assets owned by close to 30,000 members.   Unfortunately, the presidential front-runner is not immersed in the movement such that he was not able to flesh out his ideas.

Because he favors a populist agenda, Duterte can very well lean on the cooperative sector to provide a clear direction for his poverty alleviation programs.

Cooperatives actually bring governance closer to the people, a situation that he can leverage to strengthen his political capital.

Our people demand a radical change.

The capitalist system has fostered an economy that serves big business, one that, in turn, supports politicians who sustain and build their interests.  To quote Pope Francis, the capitalist system tends “to bestow the crumbs of accumulated wealth to those in need to then, in turn, absolve themselves of their so-called social responsibility”.

On the other hand, the Holy Father looks at co-ops as a system that fosters the “economy of honesty” and should be “the motor that uplifts and develops the weakest part of our local communities and civil society.”

Duterte has a lot to learn from the so-called solidarity economy, but I can only say that with cooperatives, he can never go wrong.