Ravanera: Three-way test on development

WE IN the cooperative movement should sincerely reflect on the kind of development that the cooperatives are pursuing. This has become imperative because the word development has become a much abuse term.

Everything is done in the name of development yet, the day to day life of the people speaks that it is not so.

We are giving high adherence to the essence of development which is the development of full human potentials, the expansion of choices and opportunities.

For development to be so, it must pass a three-way test: First, is it ecologically sustainable? This means that it does not harm the environment but instead, nurtures it. Second, does it benefit the people?

This means it is responsive to their needs. And third, does it have people’s participation? Unless all the three criteria are satisfied, no development can take place, only mal-development.

The IMF-World Bank had always bannered development in the past, releasing loans to put up the Chico River Dam in the Mountain Province despite the serious resistance from the Ifugaos led by Macliing Dulag. It was then the time of Marcos Dictatorship when billions of dollars had buried the country in debt and projects were just rammed down the throats of the populace and no amount of protest can stop such outpourings what had been described as development aggressions.

The name development was again invoked in putting-up the Bataan Nuclear

Power Plant that cost the country two and half billion dollars, when the price should only be a billion or so.

It was then the height of travesty, a Trojan horse that has sucked the nation dry of its economic blood burying us in heavy foreign debt that even the new born must pay for something that has not at all benefit the country. The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant has not produced even a single watt of electricity as it was put-up in an earthquake-fault area.

To avoid the same mistake, let the three-way test be applied in all the operations of the cooperatives as to do otherwise will not be in consonance with the essence and DNA of coopeativism which is members-owned, value-based and sustainable.

Yes, it is always prosperity for all, no one should be left behind. Such reason for being calls for the members’ participation in all the major undertakings. No way can those projects just be rammed down the throats of the people because in cooperativism we give the highest priority to democratic control.

People’s participation manifests the truism that it is the people who should create their own destiny having been created with intelligence and free will.

The process of participation creates capability enhancement that develops human potentials. This underscores the essence of cooperativism which is value-based where the development of the human capital takes precedence over the economy. After-all, economy is for the people and not the other way around. This debunks the present development paradigm which sacrifices mother earth and the people to the altar of greed and profit.

With that mindset of giving high importance to the development of full human potentials as cooperatives are value-based, then oneness with nature comes next. In this context, sustainability will follow. The integrity of the ecosystems will be the priority rather than money.

This is the context why we are advancing cooperativism as the alternative development paradigm amidst the darkness of contemporaneous socio-economic realities where the ecosystems have been massively degraded to give way to so-called development projects.

I need not elaborate on this. It is Res Ipsa Loquitor (the thing speaks for itself). Haven’t we lost our 17 million hectares of natural forest and all the endemic flora and fauna, done in the name of development? Where are our rivers and bays?

Many are already biologically dead for having been treated as “waste pits” of industries.

Let the statement of Mahatma Gandhi be a reminder: “If man has to be saved from doom, development must be in harmony with nature and not as its expense.” A Lumad Leader was even more precise when he said: “Only when you have cut the last tree, only when you have caught the last fish, only when you have dried the last river, only then will you realize that you cannot eat your money.”

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