Panabo Carmen Credit Cooperative was later known, as Panabo Multi-Purpose Cooperative was basically a church based cooperative. Its birth was attributed to a Maryknollian missionary priest, Rev. Father Eugene Simon together with the 15 church laymen who were the pioneers of the cooperative and who are the same time influential in the community. It was a painstaking 15 consecutive Sundays lecture and training for the 15 initiators sometime in 1965, but now behold! A legacy- Panabo Multi-Purpose Cooperative (PMPC) lives.

        During their time, they had elected among them five (5) Board of Directors who are all male and they appointed one female for secretary and another appointment for a male manager. was an evolution for PMPC  for  while it indulged in purely credit operation years after it opened a consumer store  and trading and later opened up savings services, that is why  the multi-purpose. After more than a decade, as the competition  for the consumers surfaces, it opened to close  the consumers surfaces, it opted to close the consumer store and opened up a more relevant services a polyclinic  and a pharmacy. PMPC holds office in its very own building at the newly recognized city of Panabo. Panabo, which has a population of close to 130,000, ha. somehow made a name internationally for its being an agri-business classification and for being the biggest banana exporter in the country. It has an area of 25,123 hectares, has several wharves for the export industry, an airstrips, good communication facilities and hectares of agri land which foremost produces banana, rice coconuts, mangoes and other fruits and vegetables. Its bay area and seawaters have provided ample supply of fish and other marine products enough to provide for the community and even beyond. PMPC’s its conceptualized name implied serves not easy residents of the city of Panabo but also the municipalities of Carmen and Dujali. Both municipalities are basically agri in nature and it produces mainly banana for export and rice. Its membership from a bunch of 15 now grows to as high as 7,873 and its asset close to more than 60 Million pesos.

         From an all men pioneers men pioneers, now the greater number favors women as it has a 70-30 ratio. It has seven (7) Board of Directors for the last decade and half almost always had an equal representation of men and women. The women now share chairmanship, and it is true with the other committee offices. It follows the universal flat structure of cooperative and is doing harmoniously in its relational activity for all the members of the organization and among its officers and members of the management and staff. As it presently shifted it’s focused on financial services and other social services, PMPC was recognized by the Freedom from Hunger and by the World Council of Credit Unions for Setting International Standards in Self-Sufficiency in our successful implementation of the Savings and Credit with Education Project (SCWE). This micro finance program is designed by Freedom from Hunger for the poverty alleviation and the same time to empower the women especially the marginalized sector.

         PMPC is lucky to have partnered with CUES Philippines who run the Model Credit Union Building technology of WOCCU for its strengthening program. It uses the PEARLS standard monitoring its operation and benchmarking for best results and effective services. It adheres to the standards as it strictly observes the financial discipline. It has 20 regular employees and a total of 18 volunteer officers. It is a member of the Panabo Bankers Association, an affiliate of National Federation of Credit Union (NATCCO) under its Regional development center, the MASS-SPECC center in Mindanao. PMPC is very active in its social undertakings and its partnership with other private organizations and other non government organization and with government organization. It works very closely with the Local Government unit in carrying out its roles and programs in the community ranging from health and nutrition, family planning among others.

        PMPC have face challenges especially during those trying times like high and close competition on its consumer business and later in its pharmacy and polyclinic. But somehow, it always arrive at best decisions with due concurrence from the members. We attribute it always to the basic principle of transparency where everybody knows and so everybody shares. In its financial operation, our long been challenge before the MCUB technology brought by CUES Philippines of the World Council of Credit Unions is the lack of financial discipline and a standard where to benchmark our financial services. Foremost in the checklist of problems is our very high delinquency, which breeds low liquidity, poor financial services and low income. But with the MCUB and our adherence   with the financial discipline we were able to overcome and outgrow our myopic perspective of running a credit union.

        As to my role and duties in my cooperative and to my organization, it really calls for a wholesome attitude, a positive and proactive perspective, requires strong inclination on social values and concern, a collegial and concerted effort on every undertaking and an epitome of the cooperative values and principles. The fact that we run an organization that has to balance both on economic and social effectiveness.

 

     
   
           
 
     
   
   
   
   
       
   
   
   
   
   
       
   
   
   
   
   
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
         
         
 
           
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