By: G.T.Platero
The Cooperative Development Authority supports the 2014 Women’s Month in recognition to the important role of women in cooperative development. Scores of documented studies show that successful cooperatives in the country are run by women managers. Women leaders played historical contribution as the Constitutional provision of the creation of the CDA was introduced by Commissioner Florangel Rosario Braid in the deliberation of the draft 1987 Philippine Constitution headed by another woman — the retired Justice Cecilia Munoz Palma. When the first Cooperative Code (RA 6938) and the CDA Law (RA 6939) were passed by Congress, it was the late President Corazon C. Aquino, the first woman President of the Phillippines, who signed that significant landmarks in Philippine Cooperative history after the People Power Revolution.
Interestingly, Prof. Edna Aberilla (another woman) was the first Chairperson that took the helm of CDA. Those were the milestones in the cooperative history where women trailblazed significant impact.
