On April 19, 2024, the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) conducted a consultative session at the CDA Head Office with selected members of the National Coordinating Committee on Cooperative Development (NCC-CD) to review salient provisions of House Bill (HB) No. 9673, which aims to revise Republic Act (RA) No. 9520, otherwise known as the Philippine Cooperative Code of 2008. Among those invited to the consultative session are representatives from the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), the Department of Agriculture (DA), the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).
Usec. Joseph B. Encabo, CDA Chairman and the presiding officer of the NCC-CD, opened the meeting with a positive outlook on the review session with the participating partner-agencies in their respective fields of expertise. While the CDA is the lead agency which will implement the revised Cooperative Code, Usec. Encabo stressed that all NCC-CD members are equal in their contributions for the development of the sector and the overall Philippine cooperative movement.
This consultation comes amidst the Technical Working Group (TWG) meetings being held by the Senate Committee on Cooperatives which intends to come up with the Senate version of HB No. 9673 once it is finished with its own deliberations with concerned government agencies and the cooperative sector.
Member-agencies present engaged in constructive dialogue and provided insights on HB No. 9673, especially on provisions concerning the agricultural sector whose modernization is one of the main thrusts of the current Marcos Administration. Following the success of this consultation, the CDA hopes for the conduct of more sessions of the NCC-CD in the future to hone further the plans, programs and policies affecting cooperatives to be incorporated in the proposed Revised Cooperative Code and their successful implementation.
This activity was co-hosted by the CDA Institutional Development Services (IDS) and the CDA Legal Affairs Service (LAS).
