TRACING OUR ROOTS

When President Ramon Magsaysay was elected in 1953 as President of the Philippines, one of his foremost plans for agrarian reform was the distribution of more than 65,000 hectares of land to 2,000 indigent families for settlement. During that time, Sindangan FACOMA was registered as one of the 391 Farmers Cooperative and Marketing Association (FACOMA) in the Philippines.
Sindangan FACOMA was organized on June 10, 1956 with an initial investment of P2,010 from 201 founding members. By August 30, 1956 the Sindangan FACOMA was incorporated into an association and received a certificate of affiliation from the Agricultural Credit and Financing Administration (ACFA) with certificate no. 11608, as the 391st affiliate. Cornello Jagonio was then attributed as the founding chairman. ACFA, which was later renamed to Agricultural Credit Administration (ACA), closely supervised Sindangan FACOMA during its most turbulent years, especially in loan services that were previously exclusive for farmers in the form of production and commodity loan.
In 1972, Chairman Cornelio Jagonio resigned as the Chairman of Sindangan FACOMA after he was offered an administrative post in the newly established Zamboanga del Norte Agricultural College in Tampilisan, Zamboanga del Norte. He was then replaced by Sergio A. Bacareza, Sr. who served as the Cooperative Chairman until 1989. When ACA was dissolved in 1987, the Bureau of Cooperative Department or BACOD assumed supervision of the cooperative and adopted a new system of regionalized supervision.
Zamboanga del Norte cooperatives were assigned to the Regional Cooperative Development Office (RCDO) Region 9 in Zamboanga City. At that time, Engr. Apolonio B. Molina, Jr. assumed full responsibility as the Cooperative Chairman, after Sergio Bacareza, Sr. was elected as Municipal Councilor and opted to resign from the cooperative. On March 22, 1979, Sindangan FACOMA was registered with registration No. R-IX-FF-005.

When President Corazon Aquino signed RA 6838 or the Cooperative Code of the Philippines on March 10, 1990, the law vested the administration of the cooperatives to the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA). In compliance with the new law, Sindangan FACOMA amended its name to Sindangan Farmers MPC, and was incorporated on May 8, 1991, with the approval of the CDA.

To further expand their financing services, the cooperative was first introduced to Landbank after the financing operation of ACA was transferred to the bank. However, it was not until 1989 when Sindangan FACOMA first availed its services through its Palay Production Loan. Since the nearest Landbank branch was in Pagadian City, signatories had to be travelled in a 12-hour landtrip from Sindangan. Although the transactions were tiresome, the co-op leaders saw this as an opportunity to increase their financial capability overtime. By 1991, Landbank – Dipolog office was established and the partnership with Sindangan FACOMA strengthened through the increase in credit line.

In 1996, the cooperative was ready to accept regular Savings Deposit and Time Deposit, after the official launch of the Member-Savings Operation (MSO) and with the help of Landbank personnel. LBP then introduced the Rediscounting program of Sindangan FACOMA in 1997, which extended the loan services to teachers and their salaried employees. With the involvement of teachers in the cooperative, Sindangan FACOMA amended its registered name to Sindangan Farmers and Teachers Multi-purpose Cooperative on June 10, 1998, and opened its membership to teachers and salary earners.

In May 2004, two struggling Sindangan based cooperatives offered a merger proposal to Sindangan FACOMA. These cooperatives were the Sindangan Credit Union, Inc. and the Sindangan Multi-purpose Cooperative. In the interest of conserving the cooperatives, a general assembly with the concerned parties was organized wherein the merger was approved on June 4, 2005. It was during this proceeding that the cooperative’s name was amended to Sindangan FACOMA Community Multi-purpose Cooperative, with an acronym of Sindangan FACOMA.

At present, the Sindangan-FACOMA has six (6) offices/branches, with existing big funders that have been instrumental to the success of the cooperative’s operations. These funders include Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP), Small Business Corporation, Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC), and Peace and Equity Foundation.

The cooperative continues to engage in various financial services like Production Loan (cacao, palay, corn, coconut), Business Loan, Appliance Loan, Grocery Loan, Fertilizer Loan, Salary Loan, Pensioners’ Loan. Aside from these services, Sindangan FACOMA aims to become a substantial farm service provider while offering other agri-business services for its members, such as trading of palay, corn, copra, and cacao beans, and milling of palay and corn. In their constant pursuit to provide contemporary services to its local community, the cooperative now has its own state of the art medical clinical laboratory and x-ray.

GALLERY