Cooperation in public services

BANTAY GOBYERNO

Ike Señeres

Public schools and public hospitals are the best known public services; because we see these and we physically go to them as a matter of fact. The same could be said about public markets and public works, but that is not so in the case of public attorneys and public housing.

Common sense would tell us that public works would usually mean roads and bridges, but that should be broadly interpreted now to mean anything that would construct any infrastructure or any physical project that would assist in the delivery of public services and thus improve the quality of life.

It is good to note that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has already started building public schools, but what could also be good is if they could start building public hospitals as well.

At first I thought that courtrooms could be the places where the people could go to seek justice, but that is not really the case in the real world. Seeking justice would usually mean filing suit in a court of law, but in reality, a lawyer is always needed to do just that.

That is the reason why I now say that the people who seek justice should now go to the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO), on the assumption of course that they could not afford a private lawyer. In a manner of speaking, it could be said that PAO offices are just like private law offices, except that they could not be found in more places as they should be.

As I see it, there is a need to re-invent the whole process of providing free legal assistance, and one way to do that perhaps is to outsource it to non-profit organizations, possibly including cooperatives as well.

Perhaps unknown to many, there is a law granting cooperatives to own and operate public markets, in partnership with, or under the authority of Local Government Units (LGUs). I think that this provision has a double advantage, somewhat like having two sides to a coin.

On one side, it will free the LGUs from the expense of building and maintaining the public markets. On the other side, it will give the cooperatives a default business to invest in, aside from the fact that it will automatically create a market for the goods and services produced by their members.

Needless to say, the LGUs could still generate incomes from local taxes, a function that they could also delegate to the cooperatives. Looking at this from the positive side, it may even reduce the incidents of corruption, because of the reduced involvement of public officials.

In theory but with so much legal basis, it could generally be said that all of the public services mentioned here could already be owned and operated by cooperatives, including public housing as a matter of fact. Apparently and for some reason, there seems to be no concept of “public housing” in this country, in much the same way that there appears to be no concept of “homeless persons” here also.

So far, what is generally understood here is the concept of “socialized housing”, which is now defined to mean low quality homes with short amortization periods. My wish however that the term could be interpreted to mean high quality homes with longer amortization periods, possibly even on a rent-to-own basis. By comparison, rental housing would be a better offer for those who could not afford expensive mortgages.

Imagine what would happen if the public services mentioned here could already be owned and operated by cooperatives? Among other things but most of all, we would have a very big chance to reduce poverty in this country. How do we do that?

All that we have to do really is to eat our way out of poverty, going into prosperity. That might sound that simple to you, but it is really that simple. And what do I mean by that? I do not have the figures right now, but I do know that we are importing billions of pesos worth of food items and petroleum products. Can you imagine that?

               We are not only importing so much of what we eat, but we are also importing so much of the fuel that we cook our food with. Again I say that I do not have the figures with me right now, but can you imagine what would happen if we import in the substitution of these imported items?

Goods and services that are purchased from cooperatives are generally cheaper, and for that reason alone, co-operators could already save a lot of money. On top of the savings however, they could also earn money not only from rebates, but also from dividends.

Seriously, one does not have to be a math genius to understand that with the combination of discounts, rebates and dividends, co-operators would not only become richer, they might also become healthier because they will be consuming organic and natural foods that are also produced by their own members.

I have searched far and wide, high and low, but up to now I have not found any other movement that has the full potential of liberating the people from poverty and bringing them forward to prosperity.

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