Asian Women in Co-operative Development Forum: AWCF links up with Philippine city

Quezon City is one of the highly urbanized cities in the Philippines, located in the National Capital Region of the country. It is a center of education, commerce, and social services. It is home to the highest number of registered co-ops in the country. The local government is led by Mayor Herbert Bautista and Vice Mayor Josefina Belmonte.

The AWCF Secretariat’s office has been located in Quezon City since the time of the organization’s inception in 1990. AWCF, for so many years, has had activities in various locations in the Philippines (as one of its member-countries) in line with promoting its co-op and gender equality (GE) advocacy. This year, AWCF is having the opportunity to start coordinating with its home base, that is, Quezon City, particularly with the Quezon City government, and particularly regarding co-operatives and GE.

AWCF’s link-up with the Quezon City government started when AWCF’s Executive Director Ms Salome Ganibe became one of the guest speakers, upon invitation of the Vice Mayor’s office, at the “Tenth Annual Summit” of the Women in Advocacy Cooperative Philippines (WINC Philippines). The Summit was held May 24-25, 2013 in Quezon City, and Ms Ganibe spoke on gender mainstreaming. The WINC Philippines’s Summit was organized in coordination with the Quezon City government. Women leaders from the country’s Region 11 (Davao Region or Southern Mindanao) and other localities attended the Summit.

Meeting the Vice Mayor
Coming from its sharing at the WINC Philippines event, AWCF gained the opportunity to establish initial contact with the Quezon City government. At an audience sought by AWCF with Vice Mayor Belmonte in her City Hall office on June 11, 2013, Ms Ganibe briefly informed the official on AWCF and its activities, and the possibility of AWCF collaborating with the local government especially on gender matters in co-ops. AWCF’s expressed intention to link up or collaborate or with the local government is particularly relevant because Quezon City has the highest number of registered co-ops in the Philippines (681 out of 23,215 co-ops, as of September 2013) and also because the local government actually actively supports co-op development. In her meeting with the Vice Mayor, Ms Ganibe also mentioned the fact that proximity is also an advantage because, after all, AWCF does hold office in the city. AWCF’s meeting with the Vice Mayor was arranged through the help of Ms Rose Canadido with whom Ms Ganibe connected during the WINC Philippines event. Ms Canadido is a co-op leader, women sector representative of the National Capital Region League-Philippine Federation of Credit Cooperatives (NCRL-PFCCO), and an active participant in the co-op council of the Quezon City government.

In the said meeting between the Vice Mayor and Ms Ganibe, the former referred the latter to the Quezon City government’s Sikap Buhay Entrepreneurship and Cooperative Office (SBECO), which is led by Ms Marlyn Siapno, Officer in Charge-Head. Ms Ganibe’s subsequent presentation to Ms Siapno of AWCF’s profile and its desire to be of assistance in gender matters to Quezon City co-ops quickly led to certain developments.

SBECO tapped Ms Ganibe and Ms Maria Theresa Saliendra, AWCF Finance and Administrative Coordinator and GE Trainer, as resource speakers at the “Co-op Day” activity of the Quezon City government, an event held every fourth Tuesday of the month this year 2013. Ms Ganibe spoke on gender mainstreaming in co-ops and Ms Saliendra tackled anti-violence against women in the June and July 2013 “Co-op Day” events, held at the City Hall. These events that feature different forums and other activities every month this year are attended by representatives of co-ops from the different districts of Quezon City.

Preparing for city's co-op summit
Also upon SBECO’s initiative, AWCF became a member of the “Technical Working Group (TWG)” formed for the summit of Quezon City co-ops, to be held October 24, 2013. The TWG was tasked to prepare for the co-op summit through the holding of a pre-summit conference on September 20, 2013 at the Quezon City Hall compound. Co-ops from the city are to take part in the pre-summit and summit conferences, and in the pre-summit conference held, 40 co-ops sent representatives who took part in the conference workshops.

Previous to the planned holding of the co-op summit, the city’s Mayor Bautista had tasked SBECO through Ms Siapno to spearhead the conduct of consultative summits to craft the “Medium-term (2014-2019) Road Map for Micro and Small Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, and Cooperatives Development and Promotion.” Subsequently, it is the first comprehensive effort of the city government to craft the “2014-2016 Development Road Map for the Co-op Movement in Quezon City.”

In the pre-summit conference, an inspirational message was given by Quezon City Councilor Joe Visaya, Chair of the city’s Legislative Committee for Cooperatives, and then development perspectives on co-ops were shared by speakers, particularly on the “international perspective” (given by Ms Ganibe); the “national perspective” (given by the Cooperative Development Authority-Manila Extension Office); and the “city perspective” (given by the Quezon City Planning and Development Office.

The pre-summit conference workshops carried the development goal of “Transforming Quezon City Cooperatives into Recognized Sustainable Drivers of Inclusive Growth and Development.” The participants were divided into workshop groups to provide inputs for further discussion in the October summit of Quezon City co-ops. The workshops had these thematic goals: 1. Achieving participatory, accountable, and transparent co-op governance; 2. Transforming co-ops into models for promoting inclusive growth; and 3. Establishing co-ops as the preferred business model for economic development. Workshop discussions were anchored on: 1. Defining the situation of the co-op movement in Quezon City vis-à-vis the development goal; and 2. Identifying strategic options to achieve the thematic goals. The workshop facilitators were AWCF led by Ms Ganibe (for Co-ops and Social Development); Quezon City Union of Cooperatives (QCUC) (for Co-op Governance); and NCRL-PFCCO (for Co-ops and Economic Development).

With its ongoing collaboration with the Quezon City government, AWCF hopes that it will have the opportunity to reach out even more to the numerous co-ops in the city especially on gender-related matters, in the soonest possible time.