Cooperatives

NO HOLDS BARRED
Ike Señeres

It’s not a new word, but I am fascinated by it. Simply put, a corporative is a cooperative that is run like a corporation. The basic difference between a cooperative and a corporation is the system of voting. In a cooperative, stockholders have one vote per member. In a corporation, stockholders have as many votes as their number of shares. This does not mean however that a cooperative could not be run as efficiently as a corporation.

In a way, I am sort of rediscovering the cooperative movement, and regaining my faith in it. At one time, I was Vice Chairman of the DFA Multi Purpose Cooperative, and I had the pleasant experience of increasing our revenues by expanding our businesses. Other than that, I was discouraged by the way many cooperatives have failed because of mismanagement and infighting due to internal politics.

Moving on to the present times, I have been very encouraged by the warm reaction of Ms. Elsa Bayani and Mr. Rene Abad to my suggestion that we should help in the computerization of barangay units by giving them reformatted and upgraded used computers that are solicited from personal and corporate donors here and abroad.

As I see it, the computerization of barangay enterprises is the next logical step to the computerization of the barangay units. Needless to say, these barangay enterprises will most likely be organized as cooperatives. When they are computerized, they would have a better chance of being managed like corporations, thus giving them a better chance of surviving and growing.

It has been more than eight years since the Electronic Commerce Act (ECA) was passed. The expectation then was to have daughter laws and granddaughter laws thereafter, but so far nothing has been passed. Meanwhile, e-Commerce has not really taken off in the country. More so in the cooperative sector, very few if ever have entered the online trade.

Just like in the case of cooperatives, I have recently revived my interest in e-Commerce, inspired perhaps by my new friendships with Mr. Jay Aguilar and Mr. Thomas Lee. Jay is an American born to Filipino parents. Tom is a Filipino born in the Philippines to an American mother. Jay was one of the founders of Google, while Tom on the other hand was one of the developers of the first Apple printer.

It is perhaps simply a matter of perspective, but originally I was thinking that as soon as we teach the barangay units and the barangay enterprises how to computerize, they will soon discover on their own how to “internetize” (my word invention?). My thinking changed when Mr. Hans Koch convinced me that it should be the other way around that they have to be connected to the Internet first. Hans another new friend, he is an American who has adopted the Philippines as his new home. He is one of the founders of Syndeo Media, a social networking site just like Facebook.

Putting two and two together, I now think that it would be a good goal to put both the barangay units and the barangay enterprises online, both of them having their own good reasons to do so. Of course, the barangay units have their own local government units (LGU) to depend on, but why not make them independent once and for all, with the help of technology?

Knowledge is power we always say, but nowadays it is access to knowledge that makes us more powerful. You might say that the barangay units have other needs such as health, education and livelihood, but with connectivity to the Internet, these local villages could gain the knowledge that they need to become independent in meeting their health, education and livelihood needs.

It is interesting to note that some cooperatives are already in the business of providing local services that are good for the environment. As a matter of fact, it could also be argued that any activity that would grow anything from the soil or the water is good for the environment. The only thing that is needed now is a means for the cooperatives to sell their products to the outside world, and selling online is certainly one good way.

People are more important than machines I always say. It is for this reason that I am now calling on anyone and everyone who knows anything about computerization and “internetization” (another word invention?) to contact me, so that we could all work together in empowering the local villages.

Watch my TV show “Bears & Bulls”, a daily coverage of the Philippine Stock Exchange. 9:00 am to 1:00 pm in Global News Network. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings.