PRESIDENT Rodrigo R. Duterte has signed a law reorganizing the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA), making the agency more capable of promoting cooperativism.
Mr. Duterte signed Republic Act No. 11364, or the Cooperative Development Authority Charter of 2019, on Aug. 8. The law repeals RA 6939 to revise the CDA’s charter passed in 1990.
Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel F. Zubiri, who chairs the Senate committee on cooperatives, wrote and sponsored the CDA Charter of 2019.
“This will respond to the clamor of the cooperative sector, to make the Cooperative Development Authority more responsive to the needs of the sector and further promote cooperativism as an effective tool in achieving inclusive growth,” Mr. Zubiri said in a statement.
He said the revised charter introduces institutional reforms that will strengthen the CDA.
The law modified the composition of the CDA’s Board.
“Where the old charter called for a Board of Administrators made up of two representatives each from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, the new charter mandates instead the creation of a Board of Directors. Each director will represent a cluster of cooperatives instead of a region. Candidates for directorship must have at least five years of professional experience as officers of a cooperative, and they are to represent the following cooperative sectors: Credit and financial services, banking, and insurance; Consumers, marketing, producers, and logistics; Human services: health, housing, workers, and labor service; Education and advocacy; Agriculture, agrarian, aquaculture, farmers, dairy, and fisherfolk; Public utilities: electricity, water, communications, and transport,” Mr. Zubiri said.
“With a Board of Directors composed of a Chairperson and six representatives from the cooperative sector itself, the charter will strengthen the partnership between the CDA and the cooperative sector in allowing for stronger consultative mechanisms between them.”
The Board, under the new charter, will also function as a policy-making body, and adjudicating body on cases brought before it. — Arjay L. Balinbin
