Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Brian Yamsuan (Facebook)

Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Brian Raymund Yamsuan has called on his colleagues in Congress to swiftly approve the measure seeking to mandate local government units (LGUs) to allot a portion of their income for projects and programs that will boost the growth of cooperatives.

In a statement on Tuesday, Aug. 27, Yamsuan recognized that cooperatives have a “significant impact” in reducing poverty in the LGUs’ respective communities.

“Unlike a for-profit business where a substantial portion of its earnings go to paying the large salaries of its investors, and only a fraction is re-invested to keep the business going, a cooperative invests the money it earns back to the coop and the community it serves,” the lawmaker explained.

“Sa kooperatiba, malaking bahagi ang bumabalik din sa komunidad na pinagsisilbihan nito kaya’t ang mga miyembro ng coop at ang mga komunidad ang nakikinabang,” he added.

(For cooperatives, a large part of its profits goes back to the communities they serve, so their members and their communities are the ones who benefit.)

House Bill (HB) No. 2162, which Yamsuan co-authored, aims to establish the Local Cooperatives Development Fund (LCDF). The fund will support programs, projects and activities for local cooperatives development.

It will be managed and administered by the provincial, city, and municipal LGUs.

The source of the LCDF will come from two percent of the funds that LGUs receive under their National Tax Allotment (NTA), which represents their share in the taxes collected by the national government.

With the notable increase in the tax base used to compute the NTA of LGUs, Yamsuan said provincial, city, and municipal governments are now financially capable in carrying out the bill’s proposed mandate.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) reported that for fiscal year 2024, the total NTA allocation of LGUs amount to P871.3 billion. This is a 6.23 percent hike from their 2023 NTA of P820.2 billion.

According to Yamsuan, enacting HB No. 2162 would translate to an “unprecedented increase” in the number of cooperatives in the country. He said this growth would, in turn, create more jobs, invigorate local economies, and lower poverty incidence.

Yamsuan noted that he witnessed firsthand how cooperatives can power the modernization of the agriculture sector in areas like the Bicol Region.

With this, the Bicol Saro solon explained that cooperatives can thrive as well in urban centers such as Metro Manila where they can effectively fill the gaps among communities’ services and needs.

Based on 2023 data from the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA), there are 12.4 million members in the country’s 20,752 cooperatives, which employ about 312,300 people.

Last year’s figures show the combined total assets of cooperatives amounted to P719.3 billion, with a net surplus of P23.7 billion and savings reaching P294.5 billion.