President Aquino to keynote 10th National Cooperative Summit Sunday
President Benigno S. Aquino III will be the guest of honor and keynote speaker at the opening of the 10th National Cooperative Summit which will be held at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City on Sunday, October 10.
Touted to be the biggest historical event of the cooperative movement in decades, the Summit hopes to bring together some 10,000 delegates from cooperatives federations and unions all over the country to discuss means for charting the strategic direction of the movement in the next decade, while enabling the cooperative sector to contribute to nation-building.
Organized by the Philippine Cooperative Center (PCC) in partnership with the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) and the Quezon City government, the summit also aims to develop a common cooperative development agenda to strengthen and promote solidarity among the 78,000 cooperatives now in operation throughout the country.
According to former senator and three-term Makati congressman Agapito "Butz" Aquino, who serves as summit chair and convenor, the conference seeks to maximize coop sector membership and economies of scale, develop a framework for an industry-focused cooperatives business partnership, enable cooperatives to have a significant voice and influence in the market or industry where they belong, generate more impact in the lives of coop members and in the society as a whole (poverty alleviation) and promote "cooperation among cooperatives."
Aquino, the President’s uncle and concurrent chairman emeritus of the National Cooperatives Movement (NCM), the umbrella organization for domestic cooperatives, is acknowledged as the father of modern co-operatives in the country for authoring the first Cooperatives Code Act.
The local cooperatives industry is one of the country’s economic miracles having grown from 800 coops to 78,000 in only over a decade. Today, it has contributed billions of pesos to the economy and is now considered a major job provider to millions of Filipinos.
The theme of this year’s summit is "Towards a shared vision. (PCOO)
Aquino appoints board members/CEO of Pag-Ibig, Deputy Administrator of LRTA
President Benigno S. Aquino III has appointed EdgardoLacson, Jesus Varela, Jaime Miralles, Raul de Mesa and Benjie Martinez as board members of the Home Development Mutual Funds (Pag-Ibig), with Darlene Berberabe as its Chief Executive Officer.
The President also appointed Ofelia Sta. Maria as Deputy Administrator of the Light Rail Transit Authority.
The appointments were announced by Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte in an interview with Radyo ng Bayan Saturday morning.
Lacson is the chairman and one of the founders of AWARE, a foundation that provides free pre-departure orientation seminars to Filipino overseas workers; current president of the Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines and the immediate past president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
He is also a member of the Philippine technical committee of Nippon KaijiKyokai, an accredited organization of the International Class Societies.
Martinez is said to be a top aide of now Vice President Jejomar Binay.
Berberabe finished Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude at the University of the Philippines in 1989, finished his law as salutatorian also at UP in 1999, associate lawyer of Quisumbing Torres (Baker &Mckenzie) Law office; professor of the Department of Philosophy, U.P. Diliman; Speaker, Conference on Election Law, Batangas, 2001; Speaker, Franchising and the Law, U.P. Institute for Small Scale Industries, 2000. She authored the Retail Trade Liberalization, Asia Pacific Legal Bulletin, 2000; Divine Command Theory as masteral thesis in 1995. (PCOO)
Wash hands properly always, Palace says
Malacañang warned the people against the virus of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) which is spreading around but can be prevented by proper hand washing all the time.
The alarm was raised by Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte in an interview Saturday morning over Radyo ng Bayan citing her discussion with Dr. Eric Tayag, epidemiologist of the Department of Health.
“I wish to remind our people, especially the parents, to always remind their children to wash their hands properly to prevent the spread of the HFMD virus,” Valte said.
She said Dr. Tayag informed her that proper hand washing is the only antidote to HFMD which is now spreading in the country.
“A few months ago, we had dengue. Now we still have just one reported case of HFMD but this early we want to appeal to the people to observe proper hygiene,” she added.
Children are the most vulnerable to diseases like dengue and HFMD. And to the parents, she said, “let us take care of them always and be mindful in reminding them to always wash their hands.” (PCOO)
Government adopts hollistic approach to ensure a vigorous economy
The Aquino administration is adopting a holistic approach to ensure a “vigorous” economy.
This was the reaction given by Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte in response to phoned in questions of reporters to the Radyo ng Bayan program Saturday morning which said that the Philippine economic freedom (EF) slid to 76th position from 69th in the previous years out of 141 countries surveyed by the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) 2010 annual report.
The report defined economic freedom in terms of a country’s ability to secure protection of privately-owned property, even-handed enforcement of contracts and a stable monetary environment.
For a country to have a high economic freedom, it also must keep taxes low, refrain from creating barriers to both domestic and international trade and rely more fully on markets rather than the political process to allocate goods and resources, the report stated.
Valte said “we have made significant steps in assuring that our economy will have vigor and vitality in the past hundred days.”
“We now see that investor confidence is returning and we have only been recently removed from the list of international haven for tax cheats. These will all contribute in increasing our rating in economic freedom,” Valte added.
The EFW report noted that economic freedom experienced its first global downturn in decades in 2008. Of the 123 countries with EF rankings dating back to 1980, 88 (or 71.5 percent) saw their rankings declining while only 35 (28.5 percent) recorded increases. Hongkong maintained the highest level of EF worldwide with a score of 9.05 out of 10.
The other top scorers were Singapore (8.7), New Zealand, 8.27; Switzerland, 8.08, Chile, 8.03; the United States, 7.96; Canada, 7.95; Australia, 7.9; Mauritius, 7.82 and the United Kingdom, 7.81. (PCOO)
