Cebu province builds facility to help strengthen cooperatives
THE CEBU Province Association of Accredited Cooperatives (CPAAC) will soon have a three-storey building in Cebu City, a facility that is intended to serve as a one-stop shop for members and the group’s various activities. The building, to be called Bahay Kooperatiba, is funded by the Cebu provincial government through an initial P3-million budget and the allocation of the capitol-owned lot within the Department of Agriculture compound. “It’s a dream come true for us. I have been dreaming this for a while and finally the day has come,” CPAAC President Bernardo Desabelle said in a statement.
Proposed cooperative department
Meanwhile, public and private sector advocates have called on President Rodrigo R. Duterte to mark as urgent House Bill (HB) 4174, which will create a Department of Cooperatives. “We should increase the level of leadership of the cooperative to the Cabinet level so that at the presence of the members and the president we can discuss the problems of the country and how cooperatives can respond to them,” Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) Administrator Dr. Eulogio T. Castillo said in a recent interview in Davao City. “We have many success stories, out of the (more than) 24,000 cooperatives registered with CDA, 2% or 500 are large co-ops with assets of P100 million and above,” he added, stressing that elevating the CDA into a department level would allow the agency to expand services. Mr. Castillo said the CDA budget is currently about P700 million, with more than 700 employees nationwide. Once it becomes a department, the proposed budget for the initial year would be about P2.1 billion, with a projected increase in employees to around 1,600. —