Thursday, October 18, 2007

Region 12 coops to take the lead in summit

ALABEL, Sarangani (October 16, 2007) – The Regional Cooperative Summit on October 18-19 seeks to strengthen cooperatives in Region 12 with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as keynote speaker.

Arthur Aller, chair of the Regional Cooperative Development Council XII (RCDC-XII), told a news conference Tuesday (October 16) this summit aims to set a momentum and lead cooperatives in the country with its renewed unifying purpose.

"Cooperative means development through self-reliance," Aller said.

Aller also chairs the National Cooperative Development Council.

A cooperative should prove that it can "stand on its own first before external funds could come in."

Aller said there are 65,000 cooperatives in the country from which a conservative estimate of 28 percent are successfully operational.

Mismanagement and corruption are most factors causing cooperatives' operations to fail, according to Aller.

"That's why we are reactivating the basic principles and legal foundation of cooperativism in the country," Aller said. "If cooperative development should start from the Far South, so be it."

"Here, the advent of JAGS-CT is seen to establish linkages with our neighboring countries and thus help our cooperatives," Aller noted.

JAGS-CT stands for Jose Abad Santos-Glan-Sarangani Cooperation Triangle. It was initiated by mayors in 2004 which aims to establish international trading linkages with other ASEAN countries such as Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

Mayor Enrique Yap of Glan said new infrastructure projects had been on going in Glan, Sarangani province, and in Jose Abad Santos and Sarangani municipality in the province of Davao del Sur.

This includes the completion of the P43-million port in Sarangani municipality recently while Glan's old trading port, now a limited international port, was coming up with a P16-million renovation. (SARANGANI INFORMATION OFFICE/RGP)

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