/PNA
MANILA – With nearly 18,000 cooperatives operating in the country, Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) chairman Orlando Ravanera on Monday underscored the important role of cooperatives in addressing poverty.
“As poverty is rooted in their lack of power to have access and control over their resources and utilities, Cooperativism is the empowering path in crafting their own destiny,” Ravanera said in an interview during the agency’s 29th anniversary celebration at CDA Central Office in Cubao, Quezon City.
As a transformational leading edge, Ravanera said the cooperative movement in the country is up to the task of advocating for the much-needed paradigm shift that will liberate the people from the quagmire of poverty.
“Cooperativism is a vehicle to democratize wealth and power in a highly skewed societal order with only a few elites in control at the expense of the many who are powerless and wallowing in poverty,” he said.
“The collective power of the people shall now be harnessed to cooperativism. When the people are organized, they create their own destiny,” he added.
He said the administration of President Rodrigo R. Duterte seeks to strengthen the beneficiary programs for farmers and micro-entrepreneurs through cooperatives.
Currently, Ravanera said the CDA has 17,864 registered cooperatives with more than 10.4 million active members and PHP382.5 billion of total assets.
Subsequently, he said these cooperatives have generated more than 487,200 direct and 1,923,047 indirect jobs that have contributed PHP3.9 billion of indirect taxes.
He explained these cooperatives may be tax exempt but they are tax makers.
