THE Philippine Cooperative Movement recently marked its centennial year. Below is the manifesto issued by the Cooperative Movement in line with its 100th year celebration, particularly with its recently concluded Centennial Unity March.
On a personal note, I would like to express my gratitude to the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) for the recognition given me during the Philippine Cooperative Centennial Year: Culmination Rites and Cooperative Expo.
The cooperative movement is among the programs of the Church and it is part of the Catholic Church’s social teachings. It is a self-help organization and not a dole-out to help the poor. Cooperatives may not be able to provide the whole answer to poverty and economic injustice, but they are part of the answer.
Philippine cooperative manifesto centennial unity march
The Philippine Cooperative Movement’s celebration of its centennial year proves its resilience and reaffirms relevance to the society.
The existence of cooperatives in the country is a strong manifestation of its role in developing businesses from the grassroots and empowering the common tao.
Universally, modern cooperativism offers an alternative business and economic model to the dominant neoliberal capitalist system. Even Pope Francis has recognized the role of cooperativism as the key to better economy—and a better world. The pope has consistently criticized the dominant economic model as one that “promotes exclusion and inequality,” and “economy that kills.”
And the pope has this important challenge to cooperatives—whose intrinsic design is based on members-ownership, value-based and sustainability: “The future of humanity is in great measure in your own hands, through your ability to organize and carry out creative alternatives.”
With very rich experience, accumulated over its 100-year existence, the Philippine cooperative movement remains very relevant and is ready to take on greater challenges ahead.
Aside from being rooted on realities on the ground, the spirit of cooperativism is planted firmly in Philippine laws. The Constitution has declared it as one of the state policies “to promote the viability and growth of cooperatives as instruments of equity, social justice and economic development.”
The Constitution also made sure that this state policy would be translated into tangible service to the people by mandating the government, through Congress, the creation of the agency to promote the growth of cooperatives—the CDA.
In recognition of this important role of giving equal opportunities for the poor to get out from the rut of poverty, cooperatives are given certain privileges that would make them competitive, economically and financially feasible like the privilege of tax exemption.
Thus, as we celebrate the centennial of the cooperative movement, we gather together to reaffirm the morale and legal basis of the Cooperatives’ existence in the country.
As a movement, we reaffirm the role of cooperatives as agents of social justice, equity and economic growth.
We further reaffirm the need for the CDA to fulfill its Constitutional and statutory mandates to provide services for the development of cooperatives and, at the same time, serve as the faithful regulatory agency—all these to protect the interest of the people.
As a movement, we call on government to be faithful to the substance of the Constitutional basis of cooperatives by upholding and protecting its privilege of tax exemption. It is only through this affirmative action from the government can poor people be competitive in their enterprises in the free market lorded over by capital from the rich.
As a movement, we call on government to strengthen the agency created by law to provide developmental and regulatory services to cooperatives—the CDA—by increasing its budget and providing all necessary powers for it to be a faithful instrument of the cooperatives and the interests of the state.
As a movement, we support the road map of the CDA that leads the cooperative movement to become game changers in (1) Poverty reduction and empowerment of the poor and the vulnerable; (2) Rapid, inclusive and sustained economic growth; (3) Transparent, accountable and participatory governance; (4) Just and lasting peace and the rule of law; (5) Integrity of the environment and climate-change adaptation and mitigation.
As a movement, we call on everyone to be vigilant against any threat to the cooperative movement.
Let this manifesto guide the Philippine Cooperative Movement as it strides to greater challenges and more substantial social impact.
We will continue with Laudato Si next week.
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