Text by Stephen J Pedroza | Photos by Anthony Jacob Karagdag
BUTUAN CITY, Philippines — The spirit of cooperativism lives on.
Leaders of Mindanao cooperatives are pushing for inclusive, community-driven solutions to address climate change issues and the decades-long conflict in the second largest island of the Philippines.
The 46th Cooperative Leaders’ Congress and General Assembly on May 1-2 in Butuan City marked the unity of the coops to start taking actions toward the said issues at their own local level.
“We have to be united, 13 million coop members nationwide, to develop and improve not just the quality of our lives but more importantly take care of our environment and resources,” said Orlando R Ravanera, chairman of the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA).
The coop congress drew together over 600 delegates from more than 140 members of MASS-SPECC Cooperative Development Center.
Ravanera shared that cooperatives can empower their members who are mostly fisher folks, factory workers, housewives, vendors and indigenous peoples, among others, through capacity building, knowledge dissemination, and strengthening their sense of community ownership.
Citing government statistics, the total business volume of registered cooperatives in the Philippines in 2013 amounts to Php437.6B or 3.8% of our 2013 gross domestic product.
Moreover, the total volume of business of registered coops in Mindanao in 2013 is Php101.88B and at least 60% of the latter came from Northern Mindanao and Davao Region.
Cooperativism for Mother Earth
Ravanera challenged the different cooperatives to come up with their own long-term initiatives to make their communities resilient and more prepared for disasters.
In 2008, according to the Brussels-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), the Philippines was one of three countries hit by most disasters, and leads the list of (vulnerable) nations most in danger of facing frequent and more intense storms.
Cooperatives serve as partners of Xavier University’s Valuing Ecosystem Services Together (VEST) project in an environmental undertaking for Mt Kalatungan in Talakag, Bukidnon and the Cagayan de Oro river basin.
"The challenge is helping cooperatives to be resilient and sustainable as it is not only about saving lives but preserving livelihoods as well,” said Analyn B Mejares, VEST technical officer and environmental consultant of MASS-SPECC.
VEST is the social marketing arm of the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) for Mt Kalatungan which acts as a “rewarding mechanism” with a slew of activities to encourage Kagay-anons to participate in the fund drive to reforest the denuded mountain range.
Different sectors—corporations, cooperatives, the academe, religious groups, and households—in NorMin will reward the lumad community with economic incentives for acting as forest managers to ensure that watersheds along the region develop high water infiltration capacity.
“What more can cooperatives do?” she asked. Mejares recommended that cooperatives can invest a significant portion of their community development fund to the PES/VEST project, sustainable agriculture and solid waste management, among other interventions.
“The Philippines ranked 2nd in the world in terms of vulnerability to disaster and natural hazards, according to the World Risk Index 2014 report and one of the major reasons why the Philippines is at high risk is poverty,” said Mejares, who studied Environmental Systems, Markets and Climate Change at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia.
“We still lack the resources, technical capacities and infrastructure to cope with disasters,” she said, in hopes that cooperatives can collectively act on addressing climate change through localized disaster risk reduction and management programs.
Moreover, Raizsa Mae "Bai" Anayatin, executive director of Mindanao Coalition Development NGO Networks (MINCODE) agrees that this is the right time “to understand and learn about climate change and how it affects our lives.”
“We have a critical question — how can we make growth more inclusive? This is where you, the cooperatives, can play a very significant role as catalysts for development. Stay true to the principles of solidarity and equity,” Anayatin said.
“You are at the forefront of ensuring that the poor and the marginalized are given the preferential opportunity to grow and be empowered.”
Achieving peace through cooperatives
Cagayan de Oro-based MASS-SPECC is the largest cooperative federation in the Philippines with a total of 272 active members and with assets amounting to more than one billion pesos. Its services include central fund, investment, consultancy, education and training, information and communication technology, research, and networking.
Former Senator Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr was one of the guest speakers at the coop congress, presented on federalism as an option for lasting peace and sustainable development in Mindanao.
“The unitary form of government or a centralized government that has its orders coming from Metro Manila or the ‘imperial Manila’ has been proven inefficient and culturally insensitive to the many ethno-linguistic regional groups and to the indigenous and Moro people, especially in Mindanao,” Pimentel said during one of the thematic sessions.
For Pimentel, Mindanao cooperatives play a huge part in achieving understanding and peace because of the diverse ethnicities of their members.
According to Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Davao Region, the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), SOCCSKSARGEN (South Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and General Santos City) and NorMin have the most number of registered cooperatives in Mindanao.
“Through federalism, unity in diversity can become a living and powerful statement that can break the chain of poverty and inequality that has characterized our history as a people,” he continued.
Cooperatives are considered “drivers of development” in the country especially in rural areas.
Both Pimentel and Ravanera believe that the issues on peace, environment and social inequalities are intertwined with one another.
Aside from aiming for poverty alleviation, they believe that coops serve as platforms in reaching out to more marginalized sectors of our society and mainstreaming them in the development process.