BONTOC—Cooperatives in Mountain Province are joining the call of others in the Philippines for either the delay or stop of the implementation of the Credit Information System Act.
Passed into law in 2008, Republic Act 9510 or the CISA, mandates all lending institutions to submit their clients’ basic and credit data to the Credit Information Corp.
It calls on lending agencies like banks to submit the credit track record of their borrowers to the CIC so that every time the persons borrow, any lending agency could access the record when deciding to grant loans.
During the Provincial Cooperative Month celebration in Paracelis on October 7-8, 2016, many cooperatives in Mountain Province said they are contemplating resolutions for the suspension of RA 9510 until they are capable of complying with the requirements.
The cooperatives also agreed to meet this month to discuss and share inputs to the resolutions which they plan to present in the Regional Cooperative Month celebration in the last week of October.
During the occasion, Paracelis Mayor Avelino Amangyen, in his opening statement warmly welcomed all the participants in the Provincial Cooperative Month. He also acknowledged the role and significance of cooperatives in the community.
Sangguniang Panlalawigan member Stephen Afuyog who also heads the committee on cooperatives, lauded cooperatives in the province for being partners of the government in uplifting the economic status of their members and the community.
Gov. Bonifacio Lacwasan, Jr., in a message, urged the participants to always remember the cooperative spirit and their role as members.
Lacwasan emphasized that “cooperatives exist to correct humanity’s tendency towards individualism–or the motivation for personal gain. In place of individualism, cooperatives advocate the advancement of the interests of every member, not just a few.”
The governor, however, lamented that some become members or officers of cooperatives for personal benefit, at the expense of other members and to the neglect of the cooperative’s responsibility to the community and society.
In celebration of the Cooperative Month, the Lacwasan said, every cooperative should be reminded of the many that have gone bankrupt from mismanagement.
He said that “while every member of the cooperative has the same responsibility, the officers or board of directors have the doubly challenging task of being more diligent members; as officers they must embody the cooperative spirit with more dedication.”
The governor added that the success of a cooperative should not be measured by its assets alone, or by the number of its members. Instead, “the success of a cooperative should be measured by how much the people in the community that host it are equally progressive, whether or not they are members of the cooperative.”
This year’s Provincial Cooperative Month was spearheaded by the provincial government of Mountain Province through its Provincial Cooperative Office and Paracelis local government through its Municipal Cooperative Office in coordination with Mountain Province Cooperative Union.