A GLIMPSE ON DISOP PROJECT IN THE MUNICIPALITY OF CALUBIAN

BRIEF SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROFILE OF CALUBIAN

Historical Background

On January 8, 1919 Governor Charles E. Yeatter issued Executive Order No. 4 creating the town of Calubian which was formerly a barrio of Leyte, Leyte. Originally, its name was Eulalia, in honor of a prominent lady resident. Latter it was changed to Calubian due to the vast coconut plantation of the place. Last 2000 census revealed that the municipality has a total population of 28,421 with 6,450 total number of household.

Calubian, Leyte is basically an agricultural town. Of the total land area of 13,760 has., 12,162.60 or 87.39 % is agricultural with major crops grown include coconut, rice, banana, rootcrops and vegetables.

Inclusion of Calubian as DISOP Project Partner

It was through the then SAC Executive Director Fr Arnold Cordeta in collaboration with the Regional and Municipal Agriculture personnel that DISOP project in Calubian was conceptualized and implemented. The project started last 2005 by developing the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs) into cooperatives which serve as conduit for funds for microfinancing different projects. The following BECs include Nipa, Ul-og, F.E. Marcos, Villanueva and Sitio Kabicolan. The implementation of the project resulted in the organization and registration of the following cooperatives; Nipa-Calubian Credit Cooperative of Brgy Nipa, Sr. San Roque Credit Cooperative of Brgy Ul-og, Katilingbanon Multipurpose Cooperative of F.E. Marcos, Villanueva Credit Cooperative of Brgy Villanueva and Kabicolan Credit Cooperative of Sitio Kabicolan of Brgy Villanueva.

Cooperative Development

Initially, the total membership of the newly organized five cooperatives was 147 with Nipa having the lowest original members of 23 persons while Villanueva Credit Coop having the highest of 35 members. In June of 2007, membership of the five coops increased 177% totalling to 407 persons with Katilingbanon Multipurpose Coop with the highest number of membership of 123 persons while Nipa remained with the lowest members of 53 persons.

Starting from nil, the five cooperatives were able to generate savings to sustain their economic activities through the members' continuous capital build-up generation scheme. Different cooperatives adopted different strategies to augment capitalization . Some cooperatives had suspended payments of their patronage refund and dividends and flowing it back to their coops to form part of their capitalization. Others implemented loan retain or a certain percentage of their loan proceeds will be deducted to be added to their individual shares.

As of June 2007, the five cooperatives were able to generate a total of 852,253.45 pesos as part of their paid up capital with Nipa posted the lowest CBU generated totalling to 94,048.53 while Katilingbanon Credit Coop posted the highest CBU of 299,503.82. For the first semester of 2007, the five cooperatives had already posted a total gross income of 391,148.53 which means that the cooperatives were doing well in their microfinancing business.