FROM THE MARGINS
The Filipino saying goes, “Matibay ang walis palibhasa’y nakabigkis.” Literally, “a broom is sturdy because its strands are tightly bound,” the proverb extols the virtue of unity. These days, when people tend to focus more on individual strengths rather than interactive skills, teaching the next generation the benefits of working together is very important.
Cooperative Aliance for Responsive Endeavor Mutual Benefit Association (CARE MBA) is a multi-awarded microinsurance mutual benefit association (mi-MBA) in the province of Quezon. Owned and managed by members, it provides timely and responsive microinsurance protection, as well as non-insurance services like scholarships and assistance during disasters/calamities. It also sponsors socio-civic activities like tree planting, coastal clean-up, blood-letting, free medical missions and other community development projects.
Pelagia Mendones (Tita Fe to friends and colleagues) is the general manager of CARE MBA and has led the organization since its establishment in 2007. CARE MBA traces its roots from a meeting of the Community Development Finance Coalition (CDFC) represented by the late Dr. Ramon Yedra, in Silangang Nayon, Lucena City. Tita Fe was there as the chairperson of the Saint Jude Multi-purpose Cooperative (MPC), together with Jorge Vargas of the Quezon Power MPC, and Cecille de Guzman of the Coopbank of Quezon Province (CBQP). Discussing the difficulties that people usually experience when filing claims from commercial insurance companies, CDFC decided to put up a mi-MBA Program to assist the cooperatives. Dr. Yedra invited Epifanio Maniebo of RIMANSI, then a microinsurance resource center (it has now grown into the Microinsurance MBA Association of the Philippines or MiMAP, the biggest network of microinsurance providers in the Philippines) to help.
RIMANSI helped in the market research, training and social preparation, culminating in the establishment of CARE MBA – an SEC-registered organization composed of 10 primary cooperatives from Quezon Province – in 2008. Tita Fe, a seasoned coop leader, easily embraced the mi-MBA business model and rallied the founding cooperatives -- Ating Kooperatiba MPC of Tagkawayan, Quezon; Farmers MPC of Sampaloc, Quezon; Pearls MPC of Lucban, Quezon; QPGOE MPC of Lucena City; QMMG – HHC of Lucena City; Quezon Power MPC of Pitogo, Quezon; QFUC of Lucena City; Lopez Quezon Credit Cooperative of Lopez, Quezon; San Luis Development Cooperative of Lucban, Quezon; and St. Jude MPC of Lucena City – into applying for insurance license with the Insurance Commission (IC).
In 2009, CARE MBA received its license to transact business as a mi-MBA, offering the following microinsurance products: Basic Life Insurance Plan (BLIP), a family life insurance with savings; Credit Life Insurance Plan (CLIP), a loan protection program which covers the loan of the debtor; and Golden Life Insurance Plan (GLIP), an extended BLIP program that covers the life of members aged 66-100 years old. These microinsurance products provide risk protection to cooperative members, usually from low-income groups and rural communities.
Under the leadership of Tita Fe, CARE MBA has grown from having only 10 coop members to having 97 partner cooperatives, microfinance institutions, faith-based and basic sector NGOs, and other organized groups in Quezon, Laguna, Marinduque, Rizal and Sorsogon. As of June 2023, it is insuring 33,549 members, covering 92,260 lives including their legal dependents. It is very solvent and financially stable, consistently settling microinsurance claims within 1-3-5 days. It has received awards of recognition from the IC, the Southern Tagalog Regional Cooperative Development Council, the Provincial Cooperative Development Council and the Lucena City Cooperative Development Council. It was one of the Top 10 MBAs in the 2021 Corporate Governance Scorecard.
It is because of women community leaders like Tita Fe that the word “womanpower” has been added in the dictionary. The current executive director of MiMAP, Junjay Perez, recalls that when Tita Fe was MiMAP president, she led the establishment of their Investment Committee, convincing the Board that it is important for mi-MBAs to pool their resources to have better investment yields, safeguarding their funds and enabling them to provide better services to members. She also led the advocacy for mi-MBAs’ tax exemption.
Tita Fe is a firm believer of strength in unity. Her decades of involvement in the cooperative movement and her leadership of CARE MBA are reflective of this conviction. People from the basic sectors – the poor, farmers/fisherfolks, informal workers, microentrepreneur, women and other vulnerable groups – suffer from deprivation and have limited resources to help them improve their lives and provide for their families. But when they group together, and their organizations unite – like what they did in CARE MBA – they become stronger. They could help each other out of poverty and help their co-members have safety nets when calamities like death, illness, fire, natural disasters and other unforeseen events happen.
Challenges become easier when we have people around us to share the load. We can take inspiration from CARE MBA, which became strong by putting their members’ strengths together. Like the tightly-bound walis, ordinary people working together can do extraordinary things. As Robert Ingersoll once said: “We rise by lifting others.”
(Dr. Jaime Aristotle B. Alip is a poverty eradication advocate. He is the founder of the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development Mutually-Reinforcing Institutions (CARD MRI), a group of 23 organizations that provide social development services to eight million economically-disadvantaged Filipinos and insure more than 27 million nationwide.)