"I urge the Land Bank of the Philippines, the Agriculture, Trade and Industry, Finance, Labor and Employment, Education, Transportation and other concerned government agencies to support the Liga's drive to make the Philippines the #1CoopNation," said Zubiri, sponsor and author of Republic Act No. 11364, or the Cooperative Development Authority Charter of 2019 and R. A. No. 9520 or the Philippine Cooperatives Code of 2008.

Zubiri highlighted the major changes in the CDA, the government regulator of the cooperatives sector. "Firstly, the reorganized CDA Board of Directors is now to be composed of representatives from six clusters of various sectors: credit and financial services, banking, and insurance; consumers, marketing, producers, and logistics; human services (health, housing, workers, and labor service); education and advocacy; agriculture, agrarian, aquaculture, farmers, dairy, and fisherfolk; public utilities (electricity, water, communications, and transport). The CDA Board of Administrators used to comprised of two representatives each from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao."

"Hindi na po regionalism ang basehan ng Board membership kundi experience. Bago po ma-appoint bilang director, ang mga candidates po ay dapat may at least five years of professional experience in the sector. Thus, they're in the best position to address those problems from within the CDA."

"The law also granted the CDA more powers to enable them to function as the consultative and coordinating agent between the CDA and the sector and enable the Authority to address inter and intra-cooperative disputes. Most important, the CDA will now have more teeth to cleanse the rolls of cooperatives and weed out fly-by-night coops used by scammers and fake cooperatives that give the sector a bad name.

Likewise, the CDA will determine and recognize the qualified sectoral apex organizations which will create a more solid national alliance of cooperatives. It is also mandated to hold regular consultation with the sector, local government units."

Zubiri was the Senate Committee on Cooperatives Chairman in 2007-11, and then again in 2016 to the present. The achievements of the billion-peso cooperatives, the improved economic status of their members and progress in towns and cities with strong presence of cooperatives "demonstrate how empowered communities can become given the tools to build a strong cooperative bedrock. Coops are able to do so much for their communities, sustaining their socio-civic programs through their well-established Community Development Funds."

Zubiri is acknowledged as the consistent defender of cooperatives as when he stopped the government's intention to withdraw tax incentives and fee privileges of the cooperatives during the deliberation on the TRAIN Law in 2017. "Ngayon pong 18th Congress, handa po akong ituloy ang laban para sa mga karapatan ng sektor. If there are bills that once again threaten the sector's tax privileges, or any of its rights in any way, you can rest assured that I will not let it pass without amendments. Wala pong lulusot na batas na tatapak sa mga karapatan ng cooperative sector. Pangako ko po iyan sa inyo."

Cooperatives can increase the financial returns to their members only through business transactions. Typical transactions include members; delivery of produce to the cooperative for processing or marketing, or purchase of inputs and materials from their cooperative. Member loyalty is essential for maintaining a strong and successful operation - the basis for a sound cooperative business. Promoting increased member patronage should be a key element in the cooperative's new strategy.

Serving members

Cooperatives that pay little attention to serving their members are unlikely to survive against the competition. In order to improve services, the cooperative must first be sure what the members want - what are their needs and priorities? Perhaps the cooperative no longer provides a service that members want, or perhaps the same service is provided better or more cheaply elsewhere. Members are more likely to make use of a cooperative if it provides responsive services at competitive prices.

To be successful, a cooperative needs at least to maintain its volume of member transactions. With increased competition, it can do this only through continual improvements in services while maintaining competitive prices. Improved service may mean expanding the range of services offered to members or improving the delivery of existing services.

Among the issues to consider in maintaining member loyalty is prompt payment to members for produce delivered. Cooperatives may also consider offering credit, both to keep existing members and to attract new ones. For example, a marketing or food processing cooperative may provide advance payments to its members during the growing season to be repaid after the sale of the crop delivered to the cooperative. Input supply cooperatives may provide goods on credit, to be repaid after harvest. Prompt payment and provision of credit are of course possible only when the cooperative has funds to advance to members.

In a competitive market, members will increasingly seek providers who serve them best. As member service-oriented businesses, cooperatives should lead the way in providing the services they need, when they need them.

Minimising costs, maximizing service

To be competitive, cooperatives have to offer efficient services at attractive prices. Increased efficiency means reducing or minimizing costs while maintaining or improving quality This can be achieved in a number of ways:

Through better management and use of existing facilities, equipment, finance, procedures and people.

Many cooperatives have reduced their costs significantly through improved management. Management training programmes can help to improve the efficient use of available resources. General member education is also important so that democratic control is exercised intelligently in ways that are consistent with efficient operations and long-run sustainability Technical skills training may also help to ensure equipment and facilities are operated as efficiently as possible.

Through purchase of new or more efficient equipment.

Replacing old technology with improved technology can contribute to efficiency and reduce costs. More efficient equipment can increase the rate, volume or quality of output, or reduce the quantity of inputs used per unit of output. It may also reduce the amount of labour needed per unit of output, allowing an increase in production for the same labour requirement. However purchase of new equipment is worthwhile only if the returns to the business are higher than the cost of the equipment (since the cost of the new equipment has to be repaid by higher turnover and income to the cooperative).

Businesses that cannot purchase more efficient technology because it is too expensive are likely to face increased competition from those with the funds to purchase it. Those that are able to purchase improved technology but unable to manage it so that it produces increased returns to the cooperative, are also unlikely to be competitive. Similarly, the cooperative needs to ensure that it will have sufficient demand for increased or improved production to justify the costs of the new equipment.

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By piecing up together incomplete statistics, CICOPA has been able to find out that cooperative employment directly concerns 250 million people in the world, without mentioning indirect and induced employment. In the G20, cooperative employment makes up almost 12 % of the total employed population.