Cooperatives Help Their Members and Respective Communities in the Fight against Covid19
Press Release
We in the cooperative movement have largely heeded the call of Senator Bong Go to do our share
in helping our members as well as the communities and barangays where our entities are located. The
forms of assistance that we have been extending include among others the donation of basic commodities
such as food preparation and distribution of food packs and hygienic aids; logistics support for
health/medical workers through the provision of PPEs; and engaging in sanitation/disinfecting work
within coop offices as well as barangays.
Many of our cooperatives, federations and affiliated entities throughout the country began
performing these deeds and more as early as the first few days of implementation of the lockdown--and
will continue to provide relief, support and whatever help they can give. This stresses the timely call of
Senator Bong Go “to utilize the cooperatives’ Community Development Fund (CDF) in order to contribute
to the government’s effortsto fight the disease and help communities mitigate the socio-economic impact
of the crisis”.
The invaluable tasks that cooperatives are doing during these trying times is also in congruence
with the 7th Principle of Cooperatives: Concern for the Community. The cooperatives will continue
mobilizing the movement in order to assist LGUs and provide help to frontliners, health workers and
marginalized communities affected by this pandemic. And our cooperators have, like soldiers called to
battle, courageously heeded this call. We at the Philippine Cooperative Center (PCC) and the cooperative
movement as a whole, stand for strength, courage and compassion in performing what we consider our
mandate.
While the world is waiting, as well as praying, for a solution to COVID 19, the endless task of
providing service to both members and communities continues among cooperatives, both here and
globally. The manner with which our cooperators perform their tasks – i.e. with courage and compassion
- also reflects the message that President Ariel Guarco of the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) has
conveyed relative to COVID 19: “In crisis situations, cooperatives have always been in the forefront with
lucidity, audacity and determination. Today, thanks to their inherent solidarity, unity and pioneering spirit,
they continue to generate powerful ideas for the benefit of all. Let us continue to communicate, to share
relevant information, to appeal to the responsibility and sensibility of the entire cooperative movement.”
[The Philippine Cooperative Center (PCC) and the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA), are both
members of ICA, together with other major entities in the Philippine cooperative sector.]
The list of cooperatives providing different kinds of relief work, goods and services will continue
to grow; geared towards easing the burden of their members, the communities they serve, the frontliners
in the health/med and defense sectors and the different LGUs. The more they mobilize their resources
and engage in concerted efforts, the more they manifest that they have that show of force, as they heed
the call for them to perform tasks (or more precisely, multi-tasks) for the sake of their members, the
frontliners and the communities they serve. This is very much akin to Senator Bong Go’s “Call on
Cooperatives: Help Communities Respond to Covid-19”.
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