The Philippine cooperative movement mourns the passing away of retired Judge Esperanza Fiel Garcia who succumbed to kidney failure Monday last week at the age of 82. Known to many as Ma’am Inday, she was the founding chair of Cebu CFI Community Cooperative, one of the largest co-op enterprises in the country today.
I got wind of the news through VICTO National senior consultant Dudz Samson who posted a video clip on the social networking site of the interview I did in 2012 with the late Senator Agapito “Butz” Aquino. This was during a major co-op event in which Ma’am Inday was too ill to attend. Senator Butz, who was also acknowledged as one of the pillars of PH cooperatives gave a loving tribute to the foremost Cebuana co-op leader calling her “a moving spirit” of the movement and noted that some even called her “the mother of cooperatives”.
Over “Co-op TV” last Saturday, Maria Elena “Ellen” Limocon, a multi-award winning cooperative leader of the Lamac Multi-Purpose Cooperative also paid tribute to Ma’am Inday. Ellen said that as a judge, Inday Garcia had a grasp of the law which she put to good use in managing the CFI co-op. As a showcase cooperative, it is a template for other self-help enterprises to follow.
Ma’am Inday commanded respect because she was not an armchair leader but one who soiled her hands and feet in the movement. Some leaders who taste success can be careless with money but not Ma’am Inday. She was very judicious when it came to money matters, according to Ellen.
In fact, Ma’am Inday hardly ventured out of the CFI offices. Ellen narrated that one of these rare moments was a visit to the Lamac Multi-Purpose Cooperative Hidden Valley Resort many years back. The grand lady’s visit may have been borne out of curiosity over the way Lamac MPC is making waves, in itself a compliment to the once-struggling enterprise based in the mountain of Pinamungahan town, I told Ellen.
When I launched “Co-op TV” in 2013, I made it a point to seek out Ma’am Inday as the first co-op leader to be featured on the show. She obliged me with an interview in the CFI boardroom and I was struck that she was quite updated about developments in the industry.
The last time I saw her was around July last year, during a gathering of cooperative leaders in the Visayas who were up against congressional moves to repeal the tax exempt privileges of cooperatives. She was with husband, former deputy House speaker and 3rd district congressman Pablo Garcia.
But what is more striking than her tireless efforts to propel a co-op enterprise with a capital of P200 to what it is now, number 4 throughout the country in terms of assets amounting to almost P10 billion and 90,000 members, was her remarkable multi-tasking abilities because she was also able to manage domestic affairs. On top of being in charge of a self-help enterprise, Ma’am Inday Garcia was first and foremost a mother of eight and faithful supporter to a politically powerful husband.
In this day and age, we keep talking of empowered women but I think Judge Esperanza Garcia epitomized the description long before “women empowerment” became a trendy catchphrase in civil society circles.
Ma’am Inday is a towering figure in the PH cooperative movement. In the co-op that she founded, she left some big shoes that will be difficult to fill.
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Last Saturday, I joined fellow members of the lay Schoenstatt Movement in welcoming the newly appointed Sister Superior of the Australian-Philippine Province in the person of Sister Thomasine Treese.
Sister Thomasine, who is of German descent, spent 30 years in Milwaukee, USA and has personally encountered the founding father of the Schoenstatt Movement, Fr. Joseph Kentenich.
It was a privilege to listen to Sr. Thomasine’s experience, wherein she described the Schoenstatt founder not only as a holy man but also a real person – one who is very fatherly: approachable, always available to listen and give advice and not judgmental.
As a canon lawyer, Sr. Thomasine has at one time served in the Vatican. She is a postulator to the cause for sainthood of one of the Schoenstatt Sisters, Sr. Emelie Engel.
After serving several decades in the US and Europe, Sr. Thomasine arrives in Cebu City, venue of the just concluded 51st International Eucharistic Congress. She mentioned during last Saturday’s gathering that going to another country not one’s own can be a grace if one carefully seeks out the beauty of the place and its people and uses it to enrich one’s narrative.
I can assure Sr. Thomasine that she will find that plentiful in the Philippines and especially in Cebu despite the “oido” way we do things out here.
As we warmly welcome Sr. Thomasine, we also bade goodbye to the outgoing Sister Superior, the likeable Sr. Elizabeth Foley whose smile never fails to light up our gatherings whenever she’s around.
Goodbye for now, Sr. Elizabeth. We will surely miss you!
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