Concern for Community.
This is one of the co-operative principles that has recently been added by the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) to be observed and implemented by every co-operative worldwide. Co-operatives are not supposed to be hermits living in isolation or cults that cater only to their members with a stern warning not to venture outside their walls. Co-operatives are supposed to be significant and relevant members of society. Co-ops are supposed to be active contributors to community development. In fact, this is the very essence of cooperativism. It is the principle of caring and sharing. This is the beauty of co-operativism that captured my love in the first place and remained loyal to this kind of work.
I already explained in my earlier writings that Concern for Community is not exactly similar to the Corporate Social Responsibility. Most corporations do CSR because their expenses are tax deductible. Co-ops, on the other hand, are mandated by law to set aside 3% of their net surplus for community development. Although co-ops are tax exempt, it is as if they are not because of that requirement. The good thing about the Community Development Fund, it is being used and spent in the community, directly benefitting the people without going through all those unnecessary government red tape.
Good deeds abound in the co-operative world. Several co-ops are doing community service, handing out donations here and there, but they are rarely caught by the media’s radar. They are easily drowned in a deluge of negatively occurring events they call news. If ever, for some unknown reason, co-op activities get featured, it will just be an ad lib or inserted in a rarely read portion of the newspaper. Perhaps the media think that co-op contributions to the community are insignificant because they are only small amounts such as merely donating one or two computer sets to some remote school, merely providing for the meals and snacks during Brigada Eskwela or doing some medical-dental mission, etc.
So when the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) of Tam-an Banaue Multi-Purpose Cooperative (Tam-an BMPC) came to help in the retrieval operations at Ucab, Itogon, Benguet, they were just among the unnamed volunteers. I do not know if the arrive with banners announcing their identity and I also do not know if someone noticed that they came all the way from Ifugao and Nueva Vizcaya. But it is a proud moment for a co-op advocate like me when co-ops rise to the occasion and actively participate in a worthy cause such as rescue missions during calamities, disasters and accidents.
For me, a co-op that creates and organizes its own ERU is going the extra mile in observance of this 7th Co-op Principle. I consider it a levelled up involvement in community affairs. To have an ERU is not common to all co-ops. So far, I am not aware of other co-ops, even the so-called billionaire co-ops, that have an organized team of trained emergency responders except Tam-an BMPC. They even have their own private ambulance!
I am currently gathering additional information on Tam-an BMPC ERU because this is not something you see every day in most co-ops.
