Monday, February 19, 2007 Maxey: A partylist rep speaks up By Ram Maxey Bar None
JUST when all 12 members of the administration senatorial slate Team Unity flew into Davao City yesterday for their first campaign sortie in Mindanao and had members of local media on their toes, guess where I ended up?
At the CAP auditorium along Anda St. upon the invitation of a friend. There was a huge group of members of local cooperatives gathered there ostensibly to talk about their mutual interest, cooperativism. Of course, what else?
But what made their get-together more special was the presence of the lone representative in Congress of the National Confederation of Cooperatives (Coop-Natcco), Guillermo Cua, who gave the keynote address.
I learned a lot of what the cooperative movement in this country has been all about from him. And more. Rep. Cua, 50, is from Cagayan de Oro City. A commerce graduate of that city's Xavier University and is a CPA. He took up Development Management at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM). His wife is from Island Garden City of Samal (Igacos).
The Coop-Natcco has not lost an election since 1998, although managing to send only one representative to Congress each time. A partylist that garners, at least, two percent of the total number of votes cast is entitled to one seat in the Lower House. In the May elections this year the Coop-Natcco hopes to win two to three seats. That means garnering 2 to 3 percent of the total votes cast. That will take some doing.
Cua says a partylist slate has to campaign nationwide, like senatorial bets, yet is entitled only to the same amount of "pork" as any member of the House, where, by the way, a partylist member is treated with condescension, like a poor second cousin of the district representatives.
I asked him about the possibility of the Comelec disqualifying militant partylist slates Bayan Muna, Gabriela and Anakpawis for being alleged fronts of the CPP-NPA. Cua would only say: "It is the Comelec's responsibility to see to it that the partylist really and truly represents a marginalized sector of society." Otherwise kaput, is that it? Remains to be seen.
"We in Coop-Natcco take pride in the fact that we do not have to stage street marches in our desire to improve the lives of our members. We can best do that through the coop way. We are an organization that does not rely on violence or the use of arms to advance our cause, which is the cooperative movement."
I thought he had just said a mouthful. You street marchers, take notice. There are some 60,000 cooperatives in this country with millions of members all striving to better their lives and those of their loved ones through the peaceful, non-violent way called the cooperative movement. And in this region, their slogan is: "Sulong kooperatiba, Abante mindanao!"
