Thursday, October 18, 2007 Arroyo keynotes coop gab in Sarangani
ALABEL, Sarangani -- The two-day Regional Cooperative Summit, which starts Thursday, seeks to strengthen cooperatives in Region 12. It will have President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as keynote speaker.
Arthur Aller, chair of the Regional Cooperative Development Council (RCDC) 12, told a news conference Tuesday the 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 among the 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 added.
Jags-CT stands for Jose Abad Santos-Glan-Sarangani Cooperation Triangle. It was initiated by mayors in 2004 and 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 ongoing 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 scheduled for a P16-million renovation.
