THE cooperative movement traces its roots to the early American colonial period when the Rural Credit Cooperative Bill (RCCB) was introduced in the Philippine Assembly in 1907. Unfortunately, the RCCB was disapproved by the Philippine Commission and it took close to a decade before the Rural Credit Act, promoting the organization of rural cooperatives, was passed. In the subsequent year, in 1916, the Act was amended and cooperative administration was given to the Bureau of Agriculture. Another decade passed before the Cooperative Marketing Law (Act No. 3425) was enacted, giving the Bureau of Commerce and Industry the responsibility of organizing farmers into marketing cooperatives. Ten years later, more than 560 marketing cooperatives were recorded but their performance was wanting.
From such inauspicious beginnings, however, the cooperative movement started to blossom anew after the World War II, chiefly due to more encompassing legislation and the persistence of farmers and other cooperative groups. Through the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA), the agency created by Republic Act 6939 signed by then President Corazon C. Aquino in 1990, government efforts in the promotion of cooperatives were intensified, rules were rationalized, policies on cooperative registration were unified and the National Cooperative Movement was organized.
Cooperatives have long played a crucial role in savings mobilization, in providing accessible and affordable credit, and in marshalling the resources and energies of the less economically fortunate towards economic development, political empowerment, and socio-cultural reform. The country commemorates National Cooperative Month with a broad list of activities designed to celebrate the successes of cooperatives and strengthen the bonds of partnership and collective identity built among and within the thousands of cooperatives in the country.
