NAGA CITY - While the electric co-op that employs them has yet to realize genuine cooperative status, notwithstanding the scandalous bickering of coop board and management, a group of employees finding ways to augment their meager wages to tie them up the next pay day has shown the way to cooperativism.

        In 1983, a group of employees of Camarines Sur II Electric Cooperative (Casureco II) voluntarily bound themselves into a credit association amidst situation that they could hardly make both ends meet and resort to borrowing from better paid co-employees before payday comes.

        The idea of credit association came into the light and embraced by its original incorporators with a ‘father’, so to speak, who acquired deep fascination with the idea of cooperativism because of a son involved in cooperative organizing in Bicol.

        Merced Ayab, the only remaining original incorporators of what is now known as Casureco II Employees’ Multi-Purpose Cooperative (CEMPC), recalled that a certain Isabelo Bea (now deceased) espoused and advocated the idea of forming a voluntary self-help group to augment the financial needs of Casureco II employees who perennially resort to cash borrowing from co-workers.

        Ayab said Bea was middle-rank supervisor who was the person to run to by linemen who need emergency petty cash.

Self-help group
        Ayab said the self-help group initially attracted 25 employees of the power co-op. Formally organizing themselves into a credit association on June 23, 1983, these employees became the original incorporators, officers and members of Casureco II Employees’ Credit Association (Ceca), the forerunner of CEMPC.

        “We have no big ambition in our minds, then. All members and officers were all active. They volunteered and shared their efforts with genuine concern to nurture the association based on trust and confidence,” she said, and added that remuneration in exchange of responsibility and workload in Ceca did not cross their minds or was even raised in organizational meetings.

        She said the Ceca members were able to pool some P6,000 as an initial common fund and capitalization that revolved around the members on schedule and that the operational procedures were simple and informal but properly documented. And to facilitate repayment assurance for Ceca and free the members from the burden of setting aside portion of their wages for repayment every payday, they agreed to tie up with the finance department of Casureco II for automatic salary deduction.

        Ayab said a member could only borrow a maximum amount P500 and paid in two installments with five percent interest rate until the revolving funds grew in which the credit line was adjusted accordingly.

        “We went on with full trust and confidence to our officers who were also spearheading the operation, taking care of the organizational concerns and other matters,” she said reminiscing the formative years of Ceca.

        She credited Bea for his zeal in sharing relevant materials on cooperative development he acquired from his cooperative-organizer son and religiously discussed and studied them with all the members who voluntarily attended meetings sans organizational pressure.

Leadership
        Ayab said the Ceca ‘father’, who earned the deepest respect from the members, emulated the leadership qualities that inspired them all in which he was looked upon as their guiding light.

        These pieces of information that detailed the foundation of what is now the CEMPC were beyond the knowledge of its present officers, members and staff.

        But the vestiges of the foundation of the CEMPC, that has grown to a P20-million enterprise with variety of concerns and entrepreneurial operations, was the continuing application of operational transparency, democratic participation of its members and service orientation of the employees’ co-op.

        Josephine N. Adaque, hired as operations manager since 2001, could not piece details of the circumstances in which the success of the CEMPC was built upon. But upon employment into the employees’ co-op, she easily imbibed the service orientation she was made to understand.

        Adaque said that the Ceca was renamed CEMPC in 1996 in order for it to operate various services and entrepreneurial ventures that the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) conferred its confirmation of registration.

Volunteerism
        Receiving a monthly salary of P10,000 and performing several tasks other than managing the various operations of the CEMPC, the operations manager does not complain as she observed its officers also perform their responsibilities in the spirit of voluntarism and service.

        From its single concern, i.e. lending service during its formative years, the CEMPC, with present members of 285 or 95 percent of the total employees of Casureco II, is now operating a canteen within a building inside the power co-op’s compound where the administrative and operations’ office is also located.

        The canteen serves cheap food for employees on credit free of interest. Consequently, the CEMPC expanded to provide credit to its members on grocery items. Making use of its canteen facilities, it now ventures into catering services.

        Nevertheless, the employees’ co-op continues to maintain its main service of extending credit to its members wherein at its present status could extend a maximum of P50,000 loan to its members in a day’s time, barring unexpected hindrances.

        More so, it can now extend variety of credit facilities that included loans on short-term and long-term bases; to purchase appliances; for education; and to pay for hospital and medical bills of members and their dependents.

Track record
        Adaque revealed that with no record of losses for the past 23 years, the CEMPC’s capacity to provide loan on monthly basis could reach more than P2 million while maintaining an average of 95 percent collection efficiency record.

        To help out the delinquent members, the operations manager said they have devised loan restructuring mechanism based on the common circumstances that put its members in such situation, while at the same time that they adopted performance incentives to upgrade the membership category with corresponding benefits in terms of loan value they are allowed to access.

        To further encourage members’ patronage, the CEMPC opened savings and deposit programs with competitive interest rates.

        The CEMPC has gone along way from its initial capital of P6,020 with a single operation to its present status as one of the best performing multi-operational cooperatives in Bicol with an accumulated net surplus of P14.8 million and total assets worth P19.08 million based on recent audited report.

        And what could prove that the CEMPC continuous to banner the spirit of cooperativism is the P10.3 million from the total net surplus earned which had been ploughed back to its members as interest on share capital, including its various services that respond to the basic needs.